Mayoral Morality, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #335 | @MDWorld

July 29, 2013 Mike Gold 0 Comments

I firmly believe even politicians have a moral right to a private life. You can have sex with an entire roller derby team while dressed up like Robert Vaughn in S.O.B., as long as the team members are consenting adults and if you rent the Vaughn costume you return it dry cleaned. After all, I labor in an industry that has privately acknowledged that some of its foremost denizens take their cosplay to erotically fulfilling extremes.

So don’t tell me that Tony Weiner does not have the moral right to be the next in a long line of corrupt, deviant (and I mean that in the nicest possible way), inept and/or shamelessly self-absorbed mayors of New York City. That bar is so low a mole couldn’t crawl under it.

The fact is, you do not have the moral right to pass judgment on what others do with consenting adults. Get your long, blue nose out of other people’s asses, you pervert. Mind your own business – the innermost circle of hell is reserved for the self-righteous.

No, Tony Weiner does not have the competitive right to be mayor, even of such a provisional town as New York. This is because Tony Weiner is an idiot.

Not that he would be the Big Apple’s first idiot mayor. Or second. Or third. Tammany Hall delivered into the mansion a constant stream of whores and fools. Perhaps the biggest, and I say “perhaps” because we have not agreed upon common standards, was Jimmy Walker (1929 – 1932). He was so bad he had to resign just a few years after completely crushing Fiorello La Guardia. Governor F. D. Roosevelt pressured him out of office and, in fact, out of the United States. Walker moved to Europe to avoid prosecution.

In addition to sundry forms of rather common corruption, Walker was declared morally unfit for the job. Cardinal Patrick Joseph Hayes and other high-holy-bigots hated the little guy because he opened the city’s doors to what was then referred to as “pornography” (but is today referred to as “prime time network television”), he was anti-Prohibition, he had a thing for bedding showgirls, he legalized casino gamboling, and… horror of horrors… he sanctioned boxing!

Here’s the proof of Mayor Walker’s credibility: in the movies, comedian Bob Hope portrayed his life story sympathetically. Actually, Beau James was a pretty good movie. That happened in 1957. Thirteen years later his story made it to Broadway, starring Frank Gorshin, fresh from his star turn as the wonderfully insane Riddler on ABC-TV’s Batman series. I don’t mean to demean either performer; both played these roles with flair and talent. But when you conflate the mayor of the city of New York with America’s leading comic and America’s leading teevee psychotic, you’re not exactly casting the subject in a noble light.

No, Weiner is an idiot because he doesn’t understand how the 21st Century works. Nothing is private, not for anybody, and certainly not for a celebrity such as the mayor of our nation’s largest city. Given the fact that Weiner wants to follow two remarkably inept assholes to the mansion of power, this says a lot.

Well, perhaps I’m being unfair. Giuliani and Bloomberg were not inept at being assholes. In fact, they were great assholes. Great American assholes.

Weiner is a liar? Really? Were you just expelled from a nunnery? Name me one politician who is not a liar. Perhaps we shouldn’t have to accept that, but we already did, several hundred thousand politicians ago.

By saying he was cured and returning to the public eye, Weiner issued a challenge. He said “Check it out. I’ve learned my lesson and I’m ready to lead you into the next decade.” Many a politician has suffered from a professionally fatal case of hubris – hello, Gary Hart! – but if you’re going to lead eight and a quarter million people into 2020, you should understand the liabilities of the smartphone.

You can be an idiot and still be mayor of New York. Just keep it to yourself.

You know. Along with your dick.

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check the website above for times and on-demand streaming information. Gold also joins MDW’s Marc Alan Fishman, Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.