When in crisis, there’s always rehab. Professional golfer Tiger Woods used it when he was in trouble with sex scandal. Former Republican Florida Rep. Mark Foley used it when allegations of his icky behavior involving congressional pages made the news. And now embattled New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner is using it so he can try to survive in public office.
And according Washington Post columnist George Will, it is a sign of the times. On Sunday’s “This Week” on ABC, Will explained why Weiner’s approach was predictable.
“No, but with absolute predictability, this being a modern enlightened age, we’ve arrived at the medicalization of this crisis as, ‘I’m going in for treatment’ — for what no one can say,” Will said. “But we always reach a point these days where they say, ‘I didn’t do it. My disease made me do it.’”
(George Will wonders why liberals aren’t ‘clamoring’ for Obama’s impeachment)
But Will said his next move should be to lean on the Americans with Disabilities Act as the way to prevent expulsion from the House of Representatives.
“Well, his next move would be to say, ‘I cannot — because I have a disease I cannot be expelled because that would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Will said. “There are lots of — when a political obsessive as such as this places expulsion from politics, it’s not the loss of a job. It’s the loss of identity, personal annihilation. He’s going to dig in.”
ABC White House Jake Tapper agreed and said Weiner could hang on. However, he explained why his Democratic colleagues in the House don’t want him to hang on.
“He can, legally, as George says,” Tapper said. “You have to be expelled. And his case to make is he has not done anything to violate the law, at least not that we know about as of right now. As Jon [Karl] mentioned, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders, including [Rep.] Steve Israel who is a good friend of his, and also congressman from New York, chairman of the Democratic National Campaign Committee all week is pushing him, ‘You have to step down, you have to resign. We can’t go into a third week with this dominating the headlines. We want to talk about the Republican’s Medicare plan. We want to talk about the economy. Friday morning, Weiner told Pelosi that he was checking into treatment and she’s like, ‘We’re really going to have to go public now. You’re really not getting the message.’”