POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

Another Turn of the Scrutiny

Now that he's been exposed as a not-very-kosher dawg, Anthony Weiner's coming under fresh scrutiny for his womanizing ways. Via Stacy, Matt Boyle at the Daily Caller writes:

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin told The Daily Caller Weiner’s “long history” of “skirt-chasing” raises more questions about the New York Democrat’s Capitol Hill sexual secrets and expects more women with similar stories to come forward.

“Stories about his hot pursuits of young Capitol Hill interns date back to 2001,” Malkin said in an email. “At least one young woman told liberal Vanity Fair magazine that Weiner hunted down her e-mail address, bragged about riding on Air Force One, and extended an invitation to visit his office in person. The photo gallery of his select group of young female followers/followees on Twitter suggests a continued hunt.”

Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition expects this emerging pattern to get bigger and clearer soon. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” she told TheDC on Wednesday. “How many other women are going to come forward? Is he the new Tiger Woods?”

The comparison isn't entirely apt, since Weiner was married just over a month ago (I think), and Tiger was carrying on with numerous women while married to Elin Nordgren. And although she's attractive in an exotic but too-skinny way, Huma Abedin isn't Elin Nordegren attractive. She's Capitol Hill attractive, and Weiner himself is waif-like enough not to have to worry about breaking her in half when . . . uh, never mind.

There are no kids involved, and as far as we know, no Ambien. So far, he's just a lying dawg with a nose for venery.

I mean, isn't he like a lovable if somewhat too persistent porpoise? Unlike Tiger, it's not as though any stri . . . oh, wait, there is a pr0n star involved.

So far. Because, as happened in the wake of the (alleged) Sofitel Maid Attack and Strauss-Kahn, these pundits are correct that it's likely that more women will go public with their Weiner encounters.

It's in this context and the not-yet-widely-linked context of Jerry's controversial post from yesterday regarding the cachet of hotness among conservative women pundits that on Twitter last night John Hawkins announced that he was compiling a second annual edition of the Top 20 Hottest Conservative Women, as chosen by a select group of male panelists. Last year, Melissa Clouthier posted her own list, chosen by women, in response. As I said yesterday in a comment to Jerry's post, men's magazines are full of pics of hot women, and so are women's magazines. Everyone would prefer to look at women rather than men, except perhaps for the ambiguous readers of Men's Health Magazine (who have a piece on Congressman Aaron Schock, as it turns out), and gay guys. Even gay guys, though, have strong opinions about whether women are attractive. The Queer Eye evaluates everything.

The smart way for Hawkins to go would be to have a group of women panelists as well as men, and to release their list for a side-by-side comparison, then to solicit trenchant commentary from gay conservatives. That would have the virtue of being comprehensive and inclusive.

Also, Tiger Woods never choked this badly.

Collateral damage: Actaeon stumbles upon huntress Artemis and her nymphs.

They Flee From Me
By Sir Thomas Wyatt 1503–1542

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

And with that, the English metaphysical tradition in poetry is born. Anyway, the Actaeon/venery nexus led to a flourishing of heart/hart punned poems in the English renaissance.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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