The Nature of Things

I've done my best to ignore the sleazy Anthony Weiner stories that have dominated the news over the last couple of weeks. After all, that is New York's business and I am fully confident in New Yorkers' ability to handle it. Besides, slimeball though he may be, Weiner's transgressions are personal and his actions have humiliated one woman. Here in Texas, we have the yahoos of  the Texas legislature and the chief yahoo in the governor's office seeking to humiliate and abnegate the entire female population of the state. If we weigh the two sins against women in the balance, it is easy to see where the greater guilt lies. One thing I haven't been able to completely ignore though is the extent to which certain female pundits have rushed to excoriate and blame Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, in this affair, and, through her, to splash whatever mud they can onto her long-time employer and friend, Hillary Clinton. As an avowed admirer of both Abedin and Clinton , I am ...

The whole sick drama about Anthony Weiner's - um - weiner just gets scuzzier and scuzzier. Whenever I read more about it, I feel an irresistable urge to go and wash my hands, not to mention wash my eyes with saline solution. Actually, I've tried avoiding reading about it as much as possible, but if one is connected at all to the outside world, it seems impossible to avoid it altogether. Then I saw the headline in The New York Times yesterday that Weiner's wife of one year is in the "first stages of pregnancy." It just made me want to weep for her. Huma Abedin is a beautiful, intelligent woman . I don't know her personally, of course, but I've seen her picture, and I know she has worked for Hillary Clinton for a number of years, going all the way back to when she was a senator. She would not have survived in that position unless she had unusual intelligence and unusual toughness. She now works for Clinton at the State Department as her close adviser a...