Oh, Anthony Weiner. Just when I was beginning to miss your antics and think that it was almost endearing the way you tried to relate to the crowd at the West Indian Day parade by assuming a Jamaican accent, you go and get in an awkward and awful fight with a potential voter, a fight that just demonstrates how oblivious you are to what many New Yorkers think of you.
[jump]
While campaigning in Borough Park today, Anthony Weiner encountered a potential constituent who was clearly not a Weiner fan. Although the initial comment made by this man was not captured on video, Weiner’s response and the ensuing heated conversation are all in the YouTube video below. Weiner started off by saying, “Yeah. It takes one to know one. Jackass.”
And maybe things would have ended there if Weiner hadn’t gone on to say, in a tone just begging for a reply, “You wait till I walk out to say that?”
And that’s where the fun started and we learned that Weiner doesn’t think he’s accountable to anyone except—maybe—God, but only if God can prove his superiority to Weiner, which might be hard to do because Weiner clearly doesn’t think there are many people who are better than he is.
The video is pretty great—the man who considers Weiner “a deviant” keeps his cool the whole time and never claims superiority, just considers Weiner terrible by the common standards of, you know, humanity—but it’s important to watch through to the very end, where you get a glimpse of how easily Weiner switches modes. It’s kind of creepy to see him go from pissed off and agitated to totally calm, promising that he will not hold anything against the guy because that’s not his way. Say what you will about Weiner (which, you don’t have to say anything, the guy in the video said enough for all of us), but, man, is he ever a natural politician who can go from one mood to the next without skipping a beat. Uncanny.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen
Yeah, and the ‘original comment’ you didn’t mention being on camera was the voter’s bigoted disapproval of Weiner being married to an Arab.
Context matters.