Not such a glorious Gloria
In the wake of Anthony Weiner’s resignation, Democrats are understandably outraged at the embarrassment their now ex-colleague has caused. Some have also been heard to wonder why, if Weiner had to go, they are still stuck rubbing shoulders with David Vitter, the Louisiana congressman who had a preference for prostitutes. They have a point, and I strongly believe that anyone who consorts with ladies who send receipts instead of love notes should be booted from whatever office they occupy.
In other words, Vitter should be a quitter, even though his sins didn’t include Twitter.
Which leads me to the actual point of this post. Prostitution comes in many forms. It could be the ladies who massaged Vitter’s ego (and other things.) It could be Congressmen who sell their souls to lobbyists. It could be spouses who stay with their philandering hubbies because they like the perks of a gilded cage worthy of Architectural Digest.
And it could be a lawyer named Gloria Allred who, like worms after a pounding summer rain, emerges from the dirt to feast upon the residue left by human storms.
Gloria is a local lady, born in the city of brotherly (and now sisterly) litigiousness. She is known for her Joker-like grimace, her fire-engine red suits and her histrionic delivery. She loves the limelight as much as Weiner, and seems to have had a microphone surgically implanted in her sternum.
The thing about Gloria is that she always manages to feed off of tragedy, putting herself before the cameras as a so-called “champion of women.”
Whenever a man misbehaves, be it Scott Peterson, Tiger Woods or now Anthony Weiner, she manages to sign up the licentious lady who was the instrument of his downfall. Only she tries to sell us some gag-inducing hokum that these bleached bimbos with more mileage than the Space Shuttle are actually victims.
As Sabrina Schaeffer notes in her perceptive essay in National Review:
Why is it that Allred has no problem parading cheating, lying, and otherwise morally questionable women in front of the cameras to talk about how they were taken advantage of? Instead of recognizing that these women were active participants in these affairs, she manages to position them as vulnerable victims, taken advantage of by stronger, more powerful men (and in some cases women) like Anthony Weiner.
Exactly right.
Anthony, David, Scott, Tiger and the rest are hounds who deserve all of the criticism they inspire in decent human beings.
But it takes two (or even multiple partners, gyrating at the same time) to tango.
And it takes a professionally-licensed media whore to choreograph the performance.
Associated Press, Associated Press
Steve Peoples and Jill Colvin, Associated Press
Michelle L. Price and Josh Boak, Associated Press
Alex Horton and Dan Lamothe, Washington Post
Rick Maese, Washington Post
Ana Swanson, Aaron Krolik, and Paul Mozur, New York Times
Catie Edmondson, New York Times
Seung Min Kim and Rebecca Santana, Associated Press
Marcus Baram, Capital & Main
Jasmine Golden, Washington Post
David J. Lynch, Washington Post
Nicole Winfield, Astrid Suarez, and Luis Andres Henao, Associated Press
Will Bunch | Columnist
Jane M. Von Bergen, For The Inquirer
Becca O'Reilly, For The Inquirer
