Progressive Bloggers Are Anthony Weiner’s Biggest Defenders

At Politico, "Anthony Weiner’s defenders: Bloggers on the left":

Defenders of embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner are increasingly hard to find, but one place where he still has vocal allies is the liberal blogosphere.

On the web, some left-leaning writers are strenuously arguing that the Democrat should ride out the scandal and live to fight another day as a key liberal attack dog on the national scene ...

More at the link, but check out some of the examples:

Matt Yglesias, a blogger for Think Progress, wrote Tuesday that the Weiner scandal hasn’t changed his view of the positive congressman who, he noted, has been in politics for nearly three decades, since starting out as an intern in the office of then-Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“The idea that we should regard this extensive record in the career to which Weiner has dedicated his entire adult life as somehow fake, and his after hours twittering as revealing his ‘real’ character just doesn’t make a ton of sense,” Yglesias said in a post that discussed Weiner’s admissions but not the fact that he lied about being hacked for more than a week.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan, whose views can be tough to characterize as left or right, wrote soon after the press conference ended that he saw “little reason” for Weiner to resign. Maintaining online relationships with women who knew Weiner’s identity was “unwise, inappropriate, stupid,” Sullivan said. But, “[f]or a human being, it remains well within the bounds of, well, human.”

But with Weiner admitting his lies, Sullivan said, “[i]t would take a particularly pitiless person to pile on some more.”

Feminist writer Amanda Marcotte said Wednesday on one of The Nation’s blogs that while Weiner’s behavior might be relevant if she were considering whether to date him, it doesn’t impact his ability to serve in Congress. Stories about Weiner, she wrote, “should be relegated to the realm of ‘gossip,’ covered perhaps by the Gawker, and not ‘news’ and certainly not ‘scandal worth resigning over.’”

And he’s needed in Congress, Marcotte said.

“Weiner’s role right now is to be a bulldog for the left, to holler things that our overly cautious president is afraid to whisper. You need bulldogs, but some of the traits that come along with being a bulldog — carelessness and narcissism come to mind — work against you in a marriage,” she wrote. “I’m not ready to sacrifice people playing necessary roles just to make sure everyone’s as nice a husband as Barack Obama appears to be. And it’s definitely not our job to decide for Huma Abedin what kind of consequences her husband should face for betraying her.”

Marcotte isn’t alone in her view that Weiner should ride out the storm.

Keep reading. Joan Walsh is also mentioned. And recall that Walsh, in her recent essay, said that was she'd had enough (and wouldn't take about it if things changed) after some progressives suggested that if Huma was cool with it, then Weiner should stay in Congress.

Image Credit: American Glob, "Daily KOS: Weiner’s Press Conference Was FAKE!!"