Something More Important than Weiner's Wiener

I get annoyed with how the media finds silly stuff, minor stuff, personal stuff far more important than really important political and economic stuff. There are 14 million people without jobs. That means there are roughly 30 million people hurting badly, struggling to put food on the table, or to keep a roof over their head. But the press makes all the time in the world for stories about immature idiots who sexting.

Here is a post by Paul Krugman which puts this in its place:

The Case of the Mystery Study

Oh, wow. From Greg Sargent:

The other day, the consulting company McKinsey released a startling study claiming that 30 percent of employers are planning to stop giving health insurance to their workers as a result of the Affordable Care Act. The study received a good deal of press coverage and was widely bandied about by conservative politicians and media outlets as proof that conservative warnings about the law are coming to pass.

But as a number of critics were quick to point out, McKinsey’s finding is at odds with many other studies — and the company did not release key portions of the study’s methodology, making it impossible to evaluate the study’s validity.

There’s now been a new twist in this story.

I’m told that the White House, as well as top Democrats on key House and Senate committees, have privately contacted McKinsey to ask for details on the study’s methodology. According to an Obama administration official and a source on the House Ways and Means Committee, the company refused.

One has to assume that there was something terribly wrong with the study. At any rate, nobody should be citing it until or unless McKinsey comes clean.

Oh, and if you ask me, this is a lot more important than some sex scandal.

Update: The plot thickens. Brian Beutler reports:

But multiple sources both within and outside the firm tell TPM the survey was not conducted using McKinsey’s typical, meticulous methodology. Indeed, the article the firm published was not intended to give the subject matter the same authoritative treatment as more thorough studies on the same topic — particularly those conducted by numerous think tanks, and the Congressional Budget Office, which came to the opposite conclusion. And that’s created a clamor within the firm at high levels to set the record straight.

“This particular survey wasn’t designed in away that would allow it to be peer review published or cited academically,” said one source familiar with the controversy.

All sources were granted anonymity, in order to be able to speak candidly about the controversy.

Reached for comment today, a McKinsey spokesperson once again declined to release the survey materials, or to comment beyond saying that, for the moment, McKinsey will let the study speak for itself. However, McKinsey notes that the survey is only one indicator of employers’ potential future actions — that the conclusions remain uncertain and employers’ future decisions will ultimately depend on numerous variables. The three authors of the report were not immediately available for comment.

Another keyed-in source says McKinsey is unlikely to release the survey materials because “it would be damaging to them.”

Both sources disagree with the results of the survey, which was devised by consultants without particular expertise in this area, not by the firm’s health experts.

This is a scandal. McKinsey is obviously putting together political propaganda to sabotage the Democrat's health care bill by putting out a rumour that private companies were abandoning their health care plans. This kind of "dirty tricks" campaign is sleazy. It should be getting top billing. But nope. The "media" has decided that idiotic can't-keep-it-in-their-pants behaviour deserves top billing. Oh, and the media has joined the pitchforks-and-torch crowd wanting to "string 'em up!"

Funny... here is a list of Republican Congressional sex scandals over the last half dozen years. In none of these cases did the Republicans mount a campaign screaming "you must resign!" and the media didn't join in hounding the legislator out of office. Why the uneven behaviour? Why is Weiner selected for "special treatment"?

• Chris Lee – was sexting pictures of himself, but he removed himself too quickly to let much public outrage build (this is the closest to the Weiner scandal)


• Mark Souder – had an affair with a staffer


• Chip Pickering – had an affair, didn’t resign, but chose not to run in the next election


• John Ensign -- he not only had an affair with a staffer, but he had his parents pay hush money to the husband!


• Vito Fossella – guilty of drunk driving, having extramarital sex, and fathering a bastard


• Larry Craig – caught for lewd behaviour in an airport restroom (he claims it was all a misunderstanding about his desire to have a ‘wide stance’), this was attempting to procure gay sex by a politician who publicly called for laws against gays!


• Mark Foley – who sent text messages to underage boys (like Weiner, but worse because it was both underage and it was “gay” sex which of course Foley publicly said was “unacceptable behaviour since the official stance of the Republican party is anti-gay)


• Ed Schrock – solicited sex from a male prostitute


• Don Sherwood – had an extramarital affair and on top of that he physically abused the woman!


• David Vitter - had an extramarital affair and his name was in the little black book of the infamous Washington DC madam Deborah Jeane Palfray while selling himself as a "family values" man who was for "abstinance education" and against gay marriage.

The above is taken from this long, long list of sex crimes by both Republican and Democratic parties.

For the braying crazies hot on Anthony Weiner's case:

1. Polls show that his constituents want him to stay in office and to continue to represent him. For anybody other than a constituent to try and deny the democratic rights of those citizens to be represented by a person of their own choice fails to understand the principles of democracy and the Constitution of the US.


2. All those Christian "family values" types who want to crucify Anthony Weiner should pull out their Bibles and read John 8:7 "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Hypocrites!

Why can't the media perform its real job: inform the public on important issues so that the electorate can wisely choose its representatives? Why feed the salacious in-the-gutter mind of the lowest common denominator? Why join in a partisan, one-sided attack? Why distract the electorate with a stupid sex scandal when much more important issues affecting 30 million people immediately that the whole society indirectly (via the recession and collapsing economy)?