Liberal Radio Defends Weiner; David Shuster Says Republican 'Whoring' to Big Oil Is Worse

Even after Anthony Weiner's quavering press conference, liberal talk radio overwhelmingly suggested Weiner should stay and Republicans are worse. (The exception seems to be Ed Schultz, who thinks he ought to go.) On Thursday's Stephanie Miller show, former MSNBC host (and soon to be Current TV backup anchor) David Shuster said Weiner isn't as newsworthy as Republicans "literally whoring themselves" on the House floor to Big Oil and Wall Street:

MILLER: So, David, this boy oh boy, this Anthony Weiner story, again you know, a great progressive fighter. We love him politically and unfortunately this is one of those it just gets worser and worser stories, doesn't it?

SHUSTER: Yeah, I think it gets bad. Look, I'm far more yeah, I'm not as concerned about Anthony Weiner and how he handles Facebook and Twitter and whatever photographs. That doesn't concern me as those lawmakers who are literally whoring themselves out on the floor of the Unites States House to the oil companies that are hurting our environment or the greedy Wall Street speculators who have ruined our economy.

Speaking of MSNBC anchors, on Wednesday night, Rachel Maddow performed the perfect liberal two-step in saying because Democrats have no sexual standards of behavior, Weiner isn't guilty of any double standards, unlike the conservative Republicans who protect opposite-sex marriage:

MADDOW: Anthony Weiner, unlike David Vitter, did not actually have physical contact with anyone outside his marriage that we know of. He did not break the law by paying a prostitution service for sex. He does not even have a political hypocrisy problem here because he never campaigned on protecting the sanctity of marriage like David Vitter did. And because of that, if David Vitter is still a member of Congress, if you have not called for David Vitter to resign, if you do not now feel moved to demand that David Vitter resign now in June 2011, how on Earth can you demand that Anthony Weiner needs to resign?

On his radio show, Bill Press consistently said Weiner should not go and Democrats should lay off. On Thursday, he said: "I think shame on the Democrats for piling on. I understand why they don't want to rush out to the microphones and publicly endorse this kind of behavior -- I'm not endorsing this kind of behavior either -- but it does pain me to see them so eager to sacrifice one of their members because the Republicans are making such a big deal about this."

On Wednesday, he insisted "We Democrats are too quick to throw our own under the bus. The idea that if we throw under Anthony Weiner under the bus, Republicans are suddenly going to all be nice nice and smile, right, and say, "Congratulations to the Democrats. They have proven they're better than us." Get out of here. C'mon. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, the whole crowd, Sean Hannity -- they'll find something else to attack Democrats on. They always will."

Press thinks America is too uptight about sex, unlike the rest of the world: "But somebody who admitted sexting to women who were happy to sext with a member of Congress? They wouldn't spend five minutes on it. They woudn't think about it. They wouldn't think twice about it. They would just assume, well this is what -- all men are like this. But in America here, we ignore almost any other kind of irregularity. But if sex is involved, oh my God, it's the end of the world. Wouldn't you have to say that we've got our priorities ass-backwards?"

On Thursday, Randi Rhodes said Republicans were the biggest hypocrites on Earth, but the Democrats were to blame for keeping Weinergate going:

RHODES: The Republicans aren't really talking about Anthony Weiner - I - I've been surprised - but they're not because they understand they are exposed on this issue of uh sexual peccadillos and infidelity and uh running away with Brazilian lovers and being caught with a diaper on the DC Madam's list and, you know, uh, paying off your staff members to, you know, with mommy and daddy's money, and, you know -.they understand that they've got, you know, Larry Craig to deal with - they've got all these people that, you know, do all these strange things all the time screaming that they have the moral high ground and that they're the biggest hypocrites on the planet earth. So they've left the Weiner thing alone which means that it is Democrats that are constantly keeping this story alive.....