Gagging for it

Yesterday, The Daily News went with "Where's Weiner" and The Post went with "Hide the Weiner". (For those of you who don't know, The Daily News is ever so slightly to the left of The New York Post, although both are fundamentally reactionary rags; nevertheless, it is of some passing interest to those of us with a curiosity about comedy that in terms of headlines, The Post is almost always more clever than The Daily News, very circumstantial evidence against any conclusion that the left is funnier than the right; but enough of that for now.)

The headlines are obviously referring to something most of my readers have followed closely: no, "Weiner" is not Iranian for "Nuclear Bomb", "Weiner" is Anthony Weiner, an often-liberal congressman for New York, who... I don't really care. I guess there's some sort of sex scandal and now he's taking "full responsibility" and is very contrite (I would link to cnn.com for an article about it, but I hate cnn and will starve them of my traffic!) I believe the scandal involved him tweeting a picture of himself with an erection to some college student in Washington. And people ask why I don't use twitter! Do you really want photographs of my torso and my crotch cluttering your twitter feeds? Don't answer that. I know.

Yesterday, or recently, I don't know, I don't really follow the news anymore... you know why I don't follow the news? In the article I linked to at the outset, Tom McGeveren writes the following:

To be fair to the congressman, and putting aside all of the underminey advice the papers are soliciting from political consultants (with friends like Roger Stone, who are Weiner's enemies?), the best piece of advice I can give him is to hope that a piece of important news happens soon.

First of all, is hoping for something a piece of advice? Second, is this a joke about important news? I don't know, and that's what makes it all so painful. It could be a joke, because with what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, and the deterioration of the climate, and the death of one of the last white rhinos, there's quite a lot of news; but then again, he could be saying it straight: what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, and the deterioration of the climate, and the death of one of the last white rhino is not the kind of news that's important.

Anyway, as I was saying, yesterday or recently, Rick Santorum said he was running for president. All you need to know about Santorum is here. Please do click on that link. Seriously. He's a vile figure, really amongst the vilest American politicians, and Dan Savage has contrived with the help of his readership to create a definition for his name that haunts him as the number one google search result for "Santorum".

But with a name like "Weiner"? I mean, come on. You'd say the jokes write themselves, but somehow, when the jokes write themselves, they're never as funny.

But tomorrow, we're going to talk about a sex scandal that doesn't involve an American politician, and so there's not going to be oodles of contrition, and tough discussions with my wife, and apologies to the American people but most of all to my family. There's actually going to be a very interesting little joke.