The rise and fall (and rise and fall) of Anthony Weiner

By Jay Stone

“The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.” That quote, from Marshall McLuhan, is the epigraph for Weiner, a documentary about the smart, obsessive and sexually scandalous American politician who had it all and then lost it all when he, ahem, showed it all.

The name is only part of Anthony Weiner’s story, but it’s a big one. Later in the film, when Weiner is asked to analyze the reasons for his downfall — he had several downfalls, actually, all having to do with his apparent inability to stop putting photographs of his sexual organs on the Internet — he says, among other things, “I have a funny name.”

That is one reason why it enraptured the mass media, which are not, as Weiner notes, very good at nuance. Weiner was a rising Democratic congressman from New York State whom we meet excoriating members of Congress for refusing health care benefits for 9/11 rescuers. He was passionate for all the right reasons, until someone hacked his email and found photos of his bulging underwear that had been sent to several women.

Weiner first denied wrongdoing, then admitted it, but refused to resign. “Weiner vows to stick it out,” read the headlines in the tabloid newspapers. It was irresistible, really: Weiner and his wiener, plus the whiff of hypocrisy that is the fuel of political scandal. Eventually, he quit.

Then, in 2013, Weiner tried a comeback, running for mayor of New York City. He allowed filmmakers Elyse Steinberg and Josh Kreigman unlimited access to his campaign, and they were there to watch him overcome the jokes, jump into an unexpected lead, and then fall again in a shambles of renewed scandal, tawdry embarrassment, and sad waste. And wiener jokes.

It’s a remarkable document, an intimate fly-on-the-wall account behind the scenes of a political organization (although, as Weiner notes ruefully, Steinberg and Kreigman are awfully chatty flies.) We see him courting the press, then hiding from them, charming prospective donors, then being snubbed by them, and racing around town, bravely facing the same questions from reporters about a second sex scandal that involved (lest we forget) the nom-de-exhibitionist of Carlos Danger. And he thought “Weiner” was funny.

There are several things at play here. Most intriguing is the role of Huma Abedin, Weiner’s beautiful, intelligent and loyal wife, who is a brilliant strategist in her own right — she’s a top adviser to Hillary Clinton and gave Weiner entrée into a privileged world of presidential benediction — who has to ride out the humiliation of his strange sexual habits. The documentary reminds us of the talk-show field day the Weiner story created — Jon Stewart had an especially giddy ride — but there was also the painful flip side: Huma sitting silently, looking stricken, knowing there is another public event at which she is expected to stand loyally at her husband’s side.

The real star, however, is Weiner himself. Steinberg and Kreigman follow him into community meetings where he speaks passionately about improving the lot of the ordinary people, then inevitably gets drawn into angry exchanges with political rivals or voters. All of it is filmed by the TV cameras that followed him everywhere, and the nightly news in New York that year was apparently filled with little else but scenes of Anthony Weiner screaming at people to stop judging him, or asking reporters if any of them have a question about, say, Bronx housing. None of them did. They were on the wiener beat.

Weiner is a rare document, an unblinking look at a political fiasco told as it happens, with all of the players — his beleaguered campaign managers, his frantic press liaison people, the advisers who eventually abandon him as a lost cause — playing their supporting roles. At one stage, Kreigman (a former staffer to Weiner) asks why he even allowed the film. Weiner looks over with an expression of resignation, the surrender of a man who can’t control his appetites. Publicity? Forgiveness? The politician’s hunger to be the centre of attention, no matter how unsavory? Why did he do any of it? It was his nature.

THE EX-PRESS, August 9, 2016

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