Weiner dogged by frank photos

Frankly speaking — and we must speak frankly when speaking of A Weiner (that would be Anthony Weiner, the beleaguered congressman from New York) — he’s in the doghouse.

It isn’t really his fault, however, because his surname has in some ways been a self-fulfilling prophecy. He is a Weiner, he looks like a wiener, and he is clearly obsessed with his . . . well, his anatomy.

It’s also not his fault because he is part of a large group of human beings who periodically become sexually unhinged and act out in stunningly self-destructive ways. This group is known as men, particularly men with political power. Although I would never paint with a broad brush and sully an entire gender, the facts are disturbing.

I challenge you to name any woman, just one woman, in political office who has trashed her reputation and her personal life through sexual misconduct. Women lie, steal and disappoint the people around them as much as men, but men dominate the field of sexual theater.

They all say the same thing when they get caught, which is the same thing we say when we hear the news: “What was I thinking?” Apparently, they weren’t thinking; they were acting on strong primitive urges that bypass the brain entirely and go directly to more remote parts of the body. If those impulses did pass through the brain, someone like Congressman Weiner would think: “I just got married. My beautiful wife is pregnant with our first child. My career has never been more promising; I could actually be mayor of New York City. The stars in my firmament are all aligned.” But he didn’t think at all. He took photos of his parts and sent them to young women; he wrote suggestive messages to strangers. He behaved like a creep while conducting himself in public like a man of integrity.

When Roosevelt and Kennedy misbehaved, it was somehow less offensive because it was more private. But imagine if FDR had taken photos of himself in his underpants and published them in newspapers to attract girls? You get what I’m saying? There’s a yuck factor.