Lawrence O'Donnell on Weiner: 'Voters Need to Realize Sex Doesn't Matter'

While much of the media have actually been doing a fairly good job reporting Congressman Anthony Weiner's (D-N.Y.) sex scandal, most of MSNBC's commentators have been doing what MSNBC commentators do best - defend anyone with a "D" next to his or her name.

Such was the case Wednesday evening when "Last Word" host Lawrence O'Donnell told his viewers, "Voters need to realize that sex doesn't matter when it comes to casting their votes" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Republicans have a much tougher time surviving so-called sex scandals because they spend so much time preaching against the kind of behavior they then get caught doing themselves. So Republican careers die this way because the politician stands convicted of hypocrisy, and because the politician’s career has been largely supported by people who actually believe that family values is something you can vote for. The constituents of liberal Democrats are under no such delusion. Anthony Weiner can easily be re-elected in his district no matter what he tweets, and nothing has developed in this story so far that would prevent him from being elected mayor of New York, a job for which he is more than qualified and well-suited. New York voters know that there is nothing that should matter to them in this Twitter story as voters. Sure they might find some fun gossip material in it, but as voters they are smarter than the political media that thinks there is something terribly important about Anthony Weiner to be learned from his Twitter account.

We can only hope that the majority of American voters are not far from understanding that human sexually is just that - human. That it comes in as many variations as there are people. That there is no particular form of sexuality, no particular level of promiscuity, or no amount of abstinence that makes someone better at thinking about what our tax rates should be. Voters need to realize that sex doesn't matter when it comes to casting their votes. Luckily for Bill Clinton enough voters came to that conclusion just in time to make him president and to re-elect him. The maturation curve of the American voter is obviously running a bit higher than the maturation curve of the American media. We will continue to dwell on sexcapades long after the American voter considers them irrelevant to the question of how to govern the United States of America.

So this is what a socialist thinks about sex and politics:

• Promiscuity and infidelity are nothing to be concerned with when judging the character of a person being bestowed a position of tremendous power
• Family values isn't something you can actually vote for
• A 46-year-old man married for less than a year sending lewd pictures to a 21-year-old college student (assuming that's what Weiner did) is by no means an indication of his character or how he might use his position of power as an elected official.

If this is where America is going, our society is in far more trouble than the imminent financial crisis associated with Social Security, Medicare, and exploding budget deficits.