Last night I actually saw people on Twitter defending Barbara Morgan, the spokeswoman for the Anthony Weiner campaign. The argument was: So you've never said anything like this about anyone? And my answer is: Well, yes, I have -- but my job isn't to handle public communications for a person running for a high-level office. This is just a sign that Weiner is not only personally embarrassing, he's assembled a campaign that is to campaigning what the '62 Mets were to baseball. Which is actually fun to watch, so I really hope he doesn't drop out of the race (and I fully expect he won't):
... The [Weiner] campaign staff awoke [yesterday] to see their former intern, Olivia Nuzzi, on the front cover of the Daily News. Inside the paper was an article bylined by Nuzzi in which she told a rather unflattering tale of her experience working on Anthony Weiner's mayoral bid.Morgan says she thought the conversation with the Talking Points Memo reporter was off the record. Josh Marshall of TPM insists that it wasn't. But sorry -- if your job is to talk to the press in a professional manner, and your previous jobs required the same skill, shouldn't you have the sense not to talk like this to a reporter?
Now, Team Weiner is firing back. TPM called Weiner's communications director Barbara Morgan to discuss an unrelated story Tuesday and she went off on a curse-filled rant about Nuzzi....
"Fucking slutbag. Nice fucking glamour shot on the cover of the Daily News. Man, see if you ever get a job in this town again," said Morgan....
"It's all bullshit," she said. "I mean, it's such bullshit. She could fucking -- fucking twat." ...
Morgan also expressed disbelief that Nuzzi criticized her credentials.
"And then like she had the fucking balls to like trash me in the paper. And be like, 'His communications director was last the press secretary of the Department of Education in New Jersey," Morgan said. "You know what? Fuck you, you little cunt. I'm not joking, I am going to sue her." ...
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Enough finger-wagging from me -- it's fun to watch, and I think we're going to have a lot more of this kind of fun from the Weiner campaign, which is starting to look like the Spinal Tap tour.
Now, please don't spoil it, mainstream media pundits.
I know what some of you are going to do: you're going to start talking about the nutjobs who run for office as Republicans -- the Christine O'Donnells and Carl Paladinos and Sharron Angles and Joe Millers and Todd Akins -- and you're going start telling us that Both Sides Do It!, because Anthony Weiner. See? you'll say. This is a problem both parties have! The GOP is no crazier than the Democratic Party!
The difference, of course, is that Anthony Weiner's actual policy ideas -- read 'em in this PDF -- are an utterly mainstream mix of liberalism and centrism. Some samples:
2. Pay Master Teachers More for Taking Tough Assignments.Wow, radical, hunh?
18. Install Cell Service on Every Subway Platform.
24. Streamline the Business Improvement District Process (BID).
59. Lower the Tax Burden for Outer Borough Job Creation.
And yet when a few crazy teabaggers win Republican primaries in 2014 with rants about IRS abolition and sharia-law bans and letting states nullify federal laws, I bet the press will say, "Democrats, too, have had their share of embarrassing candidates. Anthony Weiner..."
Sorry -- no comparison. Weiner's campaign is a clown car. Personally, he needs help. But a sane politician with his platform would be a perfectly credible candidate.
