Cory Booker: Too Genuine for National Politics?

Street Fight movie poster (Wikipedia)

If you've been paying attention to the latest political rhetoric around Bain Capital, you would know that Cory Booker had an embarrassing backtrack from comments he made on Sunday morning on Meet the Press. Booker said on that program that negative attacks coming from the Obama camp focused on Romney's work at Bain Capital were "nauseating" and comparable to the right's attacks about Jeremiah Wright. Booker wanted the Obama camp to focus on the positives of this administration's accomplishments instead of making attack ads.

Booker later walked back on the comments, saying that he actually encouraged the Obama campaign to "examine his [Romney's] record" at Bain, using the justification that Romney himself has made it the centerpiece of his campaign. Romney says he's not a career politician, and since he's only been involved in two careers (political and business—namely private equity) then the only other career Romney feels he has held is business. Ipso facto, Romney is running on his record as a businessman.

Now, if one wanted to really parse this out they could say that on MTP Booker was repudiating the increasingly negative tone of campaigns and the indictment of private equity as a business, as opposed to Romney's record in the field, and given Romney's denial politics as a career then the only thing to judge him on is his private equity record. But this is American politics and nuance—like common sense and logic—has no place here.

And this is where Cory Booker's biggest weakness comes into play: he is a common sense man who is genuine with the public. This is the era of death panels and birthers, sluts and Nazis. And you want to bring genuineness and logic into it? Agree or disagree with Booker on MTP, it was his genuine opinion. It was clear his follow up video was not as passionate as his stint on Meet the Press.

Cory Booker's mostly refreshing approach to politics reminds me of someone who ran for president in 2008. If I'm not mistaken, it's the same person today telling Booker to walk back on his true opinions.

Let's Clear Some Things Up About Anthony Weiner

As I predicted in the lightning round of my podcast yesterday, the picture of a penis in boxer shorts did, in fact, belong to Congressman Anthony Weiner. I was skeptical at first considering that this was coming from Andrew Breitbart—a certified crank—but as soon as Weiner said that he could not say whether or not it was his dicture (my made up word for dick picture) I knew it was his. So the announcement that he had sent someone racy pictures—up to six people, to be more accurate—did not come as a surprise.

I was going to wait to talk about this until next week's podcast, but Twitter, of all things, has led to this blog post.

During the height of Weinergate, Newark Mayor Cory Booker tweeted that he did not believe that Weiner had sent out the photos; that "He's a smart man & wouldn't use a public forum 2 send such a pic. No story, let's move on." Now, I like Cory Booker. I like his Let's Move! Newark campaign. I think he's done a lot for the city. However, that does not mean that he was right about Weiner. In fact, he was wrong. So I called him out on it.

I wasn't a jerk about it or anything, but I pointed out that he would have to admit that he was wrong, because he was. Being the gracious man that he is, he took it in stride and admitted that he was wrong but would not apologize for believing the best in Weiner. Fair enough.

But the responses I've had from others—ranging from "Booker doesn't have to apologize" to "It's Weiner's personal life"—are completely missing the point. First of all, I did not say Booker had to apologize, just admit he was wrong. Secondly, Weiner's personal life is relevant for two reasons.

Reason number one: he lied. He straight up lied to his constituents and the nation. I like Anthony Weiner's politics. I think he's one of the only members of Congress willing to stand up to the absolute jackassery that takes place on Capitol Hill so often. With this debacle, however, Weiner has essentially neutered himself in Washington. He pretended to be the victim of a crime in order to try to get out of a mistake that he—and only he—made. He insisted that his account was hacked when he knew all along that it had not been. Not really the kind of quality you want in someone who represents you.

Reason number two: marital infidelity is a bigger deal than many think. Now, it's not like Weiner was some family values, "down with the gays" kind of shortsighted person running around spouting the sanctity of marriage. But he is married. Assuming that he and his wife Huma Abedin did not have some arrangement where he was allowed to do what he did, he violated the trust of one of the people who he is supposed to love the most in this world. If he is willing to do that, how much do you think he cares about his thousands of nameless and faceless constituents? Do you think he cares more about them than his own wife?

Now, if Weiner had not been married or otherwise in a committed relationship reason number two is irrelevant. But even if rule two is irrelevant, he still lied through his teeth to say his Twitter was hacked. Weiner has compromised his position on Capitol Hill, and as much as I agree with his politics, I don't want him representing that ideology because his effectiveness will continue to decrease. I'd rather have a representative who didn't ambiguously cheat on his wife and then lie about it. Is that too much to ask?

Photo - A clothed Anthony Weiner (Wikipedia)