Rating Anthony Weiner

How serious are Anthony Weiner's transgressions? What is the appropriate punishment? Here's how Weiner stacks up against some of his recent competitors.

The criminality of the underlying act. Sending pictures of his junk to women he met on the internet is not a crime. Good patriotic God-fearing capitalists make billions facilitating this kind of behavior every year and we hardly blink an eye (how much do you think Twitter or Google would be worth if it weren't for internet porn?). This is no Abu Ghraib or Watergate. On a scale of zero to 5 (5 being ordering the torture of people scooped up on the battlefields of Afghanistan), Weiner's actions earn a score of zero "Cheneys".

The sordidness of the underlying act. Again, Weiner was engaged in conduct that lies within the range of "normal" as it has been defined down in the internet age. What sordidness there is comes from the fact that he is married, plus the possibility that some of his partners in smut were quite young. Still, this does not compare to Newt Gingrich's or John Edwards' or even Arnold Schwarzenegger's betrayal of their wives. And it doesn't come close to the standard-setter in this category, Larry Craig's solicitation of sex in the stall of an airport men's room. On a scale of zero to five, we'll give him one bathroom stall.

Sheer stupidity. Here's where Weiner picks up some serious points. Middle school children are warned of the dangers of sexting. Surely a United States Congressman should know better. Elliot Spitzer might have reasonably hoped to keep his d'alliances with prostitutes secret, but Weiner should have known that when the internet is involved there is no such thing as privacy. On a scale from "Congressman" to "Republican" to "Republican Congressman" to "Tea Party Republican Congressman," Weiner scores a near-perfect Republican Congressman. He does not earn the coveted "Tea Party Republican Congressman" only because in contemplating his actions he did not deny the validity of well-known scientific laws (although erasing the images on his computer in the hope that that would prevent them from being further circulated comes close).

Dickishness. Weiner's attempts at denial are really in a class by themselves. There are three essential elements that define the denial of an embarrassing act as dickish. The first is that the stakes must be low. Covering up the break-in of your opponent's campaign headquarters is criminal but not dickish. Covering up a sexting incident, where nothing illegal was done and the only punishment would be embarrassment and some marital tension, is dickish. The second element is the ease of falsification of the denial. There was no way the truth was not going to come out in a matter of days, especially since it was already known that there were other photos in addition to the original junk shot. The third element is a broad category that is related to the second: the brazenness of the denial. Weiner didn't just deny the charges against him, he engaged in verbal combat with the press, then gave separate interviews to a dozen news organizations in which he repeated his lie. What a dick. For these efforts Weiner earns a full 5 Clintons. This is quite a feat considering that Bill Clinton himself only earned 4 during the Monica Lewinsky scandal (he had one point shaved off for valiantly continuing to do the job of president even during the impeachment proceedings).

So that's how we rate the severity of the acts. How about the punishment? I recommend the full Spitzer. Resign in disgrace, be photographed in your shame with your wife looking like she's deciding whether to use the hedge clipper or electric sander on the offending anatomical parts, then condemned to spend eternity as a CNN talking head.