Maureen Dowd, "Quit Is the Way to Roll": Can You Catch a Virus from Sexting?

Definition of VOYEUR
. . . .
2: a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous

- Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voyeur)

And so, Maureen Dowd has now shifted her attention from the Whitey Bulger racketeering and murder  trial in Boston to the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal in New York. Discussion by Maureen of the George Zimmerman verdict? Too hot to handle. Leave it to Charles Blow.

"Weiner . . . has turned shamelessness into performance art," Dowd quips in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Quit Is the Way to Roll" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/opinion/dowd-quit-is-the-way-to-roll.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1375244043-nRHIm8MpinbcUqHZQLJTNg). Questioning "whether cyber-sex is more or less forgivable than illicit sex the old-fashioned way," Dowd writes:

"Aside from being a gift to clowns, hacks, punsters, rivals and the writers of “The Good Wife,” Carlos Danger is also a gift to political-scandal survivors. His behavior is so outlandish and contemptible — the sort of thing that used to require a trench coat and park — that it allows Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton to act huffy."

Hmm, didn't she really mean to say, "Aside from being a gift to clowns, hacks, punsters, rivals, the writers of 'The Good Wife' and . . . Maureen Dowd"?

Maureen continues:

"Some people say Spitzer’s transgressions are more understandable because they were time-immemorial victimless transactions with well-paid humans in the flesh, while Weiner’s digital compulsions with women he didn’t know were peephole exhibitionism and insanely 'reckless,' as the new [New York City mayoral] front-runner Christine Quinn charged."

Yup, Weiner's behavior was just as stupid as Quinn's decision to put on a hoodie and declare that George Zimmerman was a criminal, prior to the jury verdict that acquitted him (see: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/blinded-hoodie-article-1.1399158).

Who will be the next mayor of New York, Weiner or Quinn? I wish I could care.

Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing in the race Thomas Friedman, who recently wrote "I Want to Be a Mayor" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/opinion/sunday/friedman-i-want-to-be-a-mayor.html), if it would mean an end to his vapid Times opinion pieces.

What does this all come down to now? Could Anthony and Huma's ties to the Clintons reawaken the Monica Lewinsky scandal and cast a pall over Hillary's 2016 presidential aspirations? Will Hillary again need to declare:

"What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Stay tuned.