s
this is a little bit new york centric but disaster lee in my view has
really big implications for the rest of the country because i feel like every
day on this show
were kind of talking about the failure
of
democratic leadership in some respects and the failure at a time when
progressive politics progressive ideas uh...
should be ascendant and arguably art said in terms of their
uh... intellectual and policy currency
uh... but are still not being implemented still not being acted on
it shows that there's a certain failure of leadership here in the failure of
imagination
uh... in the democratic party and in are the kind of vehicles that are supposed
to represent
our progressive politics so
anthony wiener
who probably most people outside in new york no for two thinks i mean nl deftly
for one thing known as being the
the uh... that winter
picture did you can say because this is a looser show he sent the dick picard
where he certain benny dick picks up a picnic and even more embarrassingly deal
such as set like peace even like
dong like kind of like dirty back-and-forth messages on twitter
embarrassed himself made a complete awsome cell
he had a sex scandal that forced them out of office without ever having sex in
the exciting let's lake let that's really the kind of act in fact you
further he never even met
interacted with these women in real life
at all part of this far as as far as we know that far as we know and i think it
would have come out by now
well who knows where does not now and as we all know is a very beautiful italian
wife and it's just kind of pressing but the other thing that i you might not
that you might know that the winner was that
site around two thousand ninety thousand and
he'd pull up as a kind of progressive media sensation because unlike so many
others in the democratic party
hughes a great
an articulate and relentless advocate on television for particular single-payer
universal health care
uh... and other really important boy very specific thing most people probably
remember him for and jon stewart and the daily show made him sort of famous
phrase
was hayes
uh... speech on uh... on the floor
where he
completely of this irradiated republicans for voting against the nine
eleven health care package jacquelyn which was that they are actually holding
up a bill to deliver health care too
nine eleven first responder so he did some great stuff like that
and a lot of people
i think frankly because we're just so desperate
uh... on in progressive politics were dot people who can actually abdicate
politicians who could have the key clearly and forcefully
uh... four
uh... for someone to do that that there was a lot of positive reception for him
belt the pro and now we have to be we're is re-emerging within the last week and
he's got a run for mayor after being completely
off but the treatment has been in the in the sphere totally off the radar for a
couple of years now he's back his mea culpa interview on your times magazine
with his wife
uh... and he uh...
he has a twitter account up and look
his policy agenda for new york city uh... is very progressive but this is
where we've run into the prom with anthony wiener is that he's running for
mayor which we wish
everyone knows he's gonna do from before that the dick pics came out
no he ran for mayor before two thousand what ever going to every were and one
knew he had this gigantic doc campaigner treasure chest
webware where he was
waiting for this moment
throughout july the key thing is actually that rehab anti weiner has
several million dollars in his campaign award chest which
he will have to give backpack or they don't measure texas treasurer national
act
which you'll have had a redacted a way that are
we'll have to give back if he does'nt uh... if he doesn't
take the plunge into this race
which brings us the problem of the opening leader which is that anthony
wiener
kind of socks
and that's a problem that this guy is gone and the potentially because
uh... we know will get into this more later we go through the rest of the
field but he the notion of him is the progress of standard bearer in this race
i don't want excluded completely because he's put out some great ideas he has
some talent
place really problematic such as go over different supple appointee ready at the
winners
record besides
of course is his is that dick pics
of which they're probably
uh... okay
sold it
take this from are the beginning
reaching back this group
when he ran for mayor two thousand five year is a kind of etc op ed koch kennard
uh... which really in new york terms that means appealing to the outer
boroughs in the middle class which is in some ways a good thing
but it's hardly progress
it's very brutal on law and order issues
uh... which obviously has a certain appealed parts of new york n
you know arguably in some ways to serve the certain purpose in making the city a
bit more safer but is gone
completely out of control
were a lot of people think that you know new york city i think of men had an as
radical liberal passion if you will
but when you get the outer boroughs that really i mean it's not an island is
extremely
all right wing in many ways in fact i believe most of their local
representatives are republican
um...
part of queens parts of brooklyn
parts of the bronx
right wing republican areas absolutely so that's a that's a cell and and we're
was trying to kind of
bill that type of outer parole white ethical issue that really is that's his
congressional district that he represented queens that's where he comes
from uh... there's a couple of other aspects to that one
do you deal with foreign policy is mayor of new york well
you know not necessarily a though we've seen with the uh... new york city are
spying scandal with the n_y_p_d_ out working in monitoring muslim communities
in the city and
uh... even other states in fact that obviously how you look at the world in
your foreign policy views have an impact
anthony wiener when he was in congress voted for the invasion of iraq
and was an almost
ludicrous lee comical supporter of absolutely anything israel did
at any time
which of many people who had some intelligence about this issue pointed
out if your israel genuine supporter of israel tous point you'd better be
criticizing
all sorts of things that the israeli government is doing to threaten it's you
know demographics in the long term to threaten its tanning international
community
but if you needed someone to say
in any situation and anytime ever israel's rate
and what ever did was always write no matter how bad
anthony wiener shirt guy
now i get i'd think this is relevant
because you're talking about mp you know governing
a global city
city that's already gotten into serious trouble with monitoring the muslim
community uh... and and and civil liberties questions around that so
that's an important thing to think about anything weiner
the other thing moving forward
uh... and what he said because again as i said
most of this policy pit bulls coming out of the gate very progressive he stuck
the having single-payer health care for new york city
he's talked about getting rid of child hunger
in the city that's great
but he is actually said
that he would not
now new york
again this is an important please policy his policy of stopping
uh... that bloomberg is strongly implement talked about it on we've
talked about the safe areas which are required citizens are you poor numerous
times basically it's police
uh... without any type of problem cause basically it's a it's essentially
formalize profiling of certain communities its
young black and hispanic men getting pulled over on the street
are getting search
and there's an admitted searching for the simple fact of to damage you look on
it
suspicious too then you look suspicious that you have done that in this early do
anything if they're driving by and they said they think it's different for each
individual cop-out obviously if they think it looks suspicious
heads up against the wall and they will frisky
anita and also in the kind of in new york there's videos release regularly of
just even i mean there's some videos that are that are worse than others in
terms of actual physical abuse but is also wisconsin videos of
cops berating teenagers
teenagers doing absolutely nothing getting paraded in harassed on the route
so
to really problematic policy to say the least that it's kind of
uh... that opposition to it in the city is really grow out of the last couple
years of all mayoral candidates including christine quinn who's that
democratic leadership council mainstream bloomberg democrat
has made some moves
against that weiner said one of his first t_v_ interviews when he talked
since uh... melting this up may world sports are a committee
he said i don't think it's smart to stop from police from having the ability to
do that speaking in regard to stop in france
now he added a bunch of caveats to it
right out of the gate
the progressive candidate
is saying
that stop in for a schism
tall
happily should happen all
there's all sorts of other things that we hear apparently he was a nightmare to
work with you is terrible to his staff which matters if your job is mayor
because of the part of the mayor's managing pgp listening as they picked
people he didn't know a management those poor staffers were going to do
and taking her to have the office with a just hanging around out there you know
it's a big dicks
text alike
let go of the stress from terrorizing his office
to get more press politics'
but i think the thing to do that anyway you know it's like look you know that
that the bigger thing here is
this guy ins like known as the sort of seminal progressive voice and we just
identified several things about him better incredibly disturbing
and wrong on the merits of wrong on policy not to mention the fact that
probably more pictures
odd that he sent out over twitter will come out
and the next couple weeks
are just think that the park
itself frustrating with dampening weiner because it's like
it so rare to find an elizabeth warren
or someone who did they have progressive politics they governor progressive way
and they're serious about doing the work that they're meant to do that
type of policy agenda
has so much opportunity right now and yet there are so few people
they're willing to represent and i gotta tell you
so anyways i would not trust antony leader will
step plate wait-and-see attitude see what happens
but be very skeptical and i think the fact that he's gotten so popular based
off of
being the t_v_ pundit not be that congress exactly talking about its offer
show and that's fine but that's what we're doing to right like that
that's not a problem but the fact i'd say that's what we're doing
we're not doing too little bit of like
commentary in public that italy deal but i mean we do believe what we're saying
read love so well i'm not even saying i mean outlook even if they have to be
weiner
totally believes what he's saying he doesn't have a congressional you know
record and also without adding up we are also not out there saying these things
and go ahead and making votes that matter to people five th
plumber also not in congress were presumably at main part of our job
countywide what you're saying dot lettuce and bites not exactly
yeah file motions
you i was saying the right thing
source saying non sequitur
that's and i've got a hot pockets about what you're saying is that i mean if you
want someone running against christine quinn
as the progress of candidate
you want someone who's gonna be strong who people to be able to say you know
what let's take a look at this guy or girl yes let's take a look and see if
you know that this person is giving us something that's
that's meaningful beckett actually be christine quinn let's rally behind this
plan on top however yeah you back pay this person whose it was val become is
used on the forefront right behind christine quinn practical basically
g_e_ ali has these
this perspective
but b
he has this his past with these pictures
i mean like you said there's more than one
i'm sure that all come out
and i mean we're gonna run a progressive candidate was a not really true
progressive and be will most likely lose the christine quinn anyway because of
this these past that will likely come out during this campaign and again that
we are so starved leadership
that a guy and i don't want to minimize it he was great on t_v_ and it was
really fun watching him beat bill o'reilly debate and he did and i don't
think he's like secretly right wing or whatever i think he is
assessing what he shows himself he's very right wing on foreign policy views
of some
whatever but the point is is that
cult easy it was to get progressive credit and respect
just for doing those t_v_ appearances
shows
complete
poverty a progressive leadership in america and that's what i think
you know anthony wiener points to a bigger problem way beyond him
i mean twenty six if you think about it like
with on the progress of a
and the things i just mentioned
if weiner was running
in for you know the house of something where again again where rock
where he was the most progressive candidate right because he was very
again some right wing republican
then i would be forced to put my checks behind and and and hope that more is but
we're in a race right now where it everyone running
is a democrat who has a chance of winning at least is a democrat
it's basically from a right wing the center i guess if you want to call a
democrat to true progressives and you have someone who who like like anthony
wiener who's gonna hurt someone like bill the blouses chances of little blahs
years like the genuine kind of progress of left-wing candid
and he's not getting any traction which is
having his faults
welfare campaigns feel that i'm not so far he's still the guy i'm supporting
sonya but i think that's interesting though cuz that's kind of flipside a
need to have a guy looked implies used in
uh... there's a position ka public advocate new york city
uh... and he's got a very genuinely press of record is running a really you
know on good issues
his campaign you know it's it's it's a topic for another day it's just
functional the incompetent so far
so that's the other flipside they've got a guy who really is this pretty
desirable candidate
what new york really needs
doesn't have weird skeletons in his closet as far as we know
and yet just can't get it together
may be caused to show you just how long it's been since
many true progresses have been involved in
politics in terms of being all an elected official i mean
seems like this might be the seems to be the case a lot of these true progressive
candidates where
did their staff members who are true progressives who support them
still have the experience these
the center bright or right wing
staff members had the in the system
i don't know i mean it could be i think that you know i tied to think that
in in the coming decades you seem more people
are the kind of elizabeth wanted profile running and i'll be really good thing
but i think in that you know the short term interest frustrating to watch
yet the weird thing because he's so problematic
on so many different areas
and yet
you know has gotten issues currency for socket