Huma Abedin wasn't standing by her man....No intention of splitting up over this. Those last 2 words jumped out at me.
A top aide to Secretary of State Clinton, Abedin issued no statements of support for her embattled husband. She was a no-show Monday at two public State Department events.
"I love my wife very much, and we have no intention of splitting up over this," Weiner insisted. "I love her very much, and she loves me."
Several political pros cheered her absence yesterday.Ha ha. He's a PR expert! He's not advising Weiner in advance. He's dealing with the facts he's stuck with. This is what the PR man says when the wife isn't there. What did the Democratic consultants say when Silda Spitzer stood by her man?
"In general, it's very difficult for women constituents to look at the grieving wife up there," said Democratic consultant George Arzt. "It's bad PR."
The better move for Weiner, Arzt said, was "to look like he can take it all by himself and stand up there."
University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato took to Twitter with a similar view: "At least Weiner didn't make his wife come out and gaze lovingly at him."
The New York Post headlines: "Weiner & wife worlds apart/:Snake slithers when Huma is globetrotting with Hill."
As the "body woman" to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huma Abedin is tasked with accompanying the former first lady on diplomatic globetrotting missions.I wonder what conversations Huma is having with Hillary — the world's most famous stander by of her man.
Weiner, it seems, uses the timing of her foreign affairs to pursue domestic ones online.
For instance, last month, while Abedin and Clinton were in Rome meeting with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Weiner was chatting up Texas nursing student Meagan Broussard.
The political power couple met while Abedin was on the campaign trail during Clinton's 2008 White House bid. By 2009, they were engaged....Didn't Abedin know the kind of man she was marrying? He was 45, and had never married previously. As Hillary's close assistant, she had to be sophisticated about the ways of oversexed, extroverted, narcissistic husbands. What was the marriage supposed to be, anyway? They were conspicuously a glamorous "power couple," for public purposes, but what was he allowed to do in private? What were their understandings? At the press conference yesterday, Weiner said that she asked how he could be so dumb, which made me think what mattered most was that people found out and she was shamed and embarrassed. Was it the public image that mattered, or was it to be a loyal, deeply bonded marriage in private?
Unlike Bill and Hillary, Weiner and Abedin have only been married a year, and they have no children. And the husband's career is deeply compromised at this point. They're not going to become the Democratic Party's next Bill and Hillary. The glamorous power couple is defunct. What happens to the private Tony and Huma?