From the "Sin makes you stupid" file.

Who are these people? 

And why do they think they have a magic charm against the reasonably foreseeable result from this kind of reckless behavior?

Weiner acknowledges that he sent lewd pictures of himself to strangers.

He didn’t have any explanation for his online habits.


“I don't know what I was thinking,” Weiner said, explaining that he thought his sexting and racy communications were “frivolous.” He also said that he has never met any of the women he communicated with in person. He declined to say if he engaged in phone sex with them, as the latest allegations claim.

“It was something that I did that was just wrong, and I regret it,” Weiner said, adding that he panicked when the first tweets went public, and lied to hide his other X-rated activities.

“I was embarrassed, I was humiliated,” he said. “I was trying to protect myself and my wife.”

He insisted he did not use government equipment, using his own phone and his home computer, to communicate with the women.

People who know Weiner were stunned, having argued as recently as last week that he was too smart to have done what he was accused of.

Two points:

First, the issue isn't whether a politician misused government equipment.  The issue is why out of the thousands of people available for the job anyone with such a clear lack of common sense is indispensible.

Second, the "too smart" defense is so obviously a "non-starter" in this day and age when it comes to politicians and other public figures.
Concerning the first point, Weiner refuses to resign, which shows the sense of entitlement that our political class has developed.
 
Also, I was willing to believe Weiner's denial in light of the support given to his denial by the recipient, but she seems to have just plain lied:
 

The scandal first emerged after Weiner sent the now infamous 'bulge' picture to Seattle student Gennette Cordova.


When the story broke on May 27, Weiner at first said his Twitter account had been hacked and denied the picture was of his crotch.

But today, a chastised Weiner claimed the 'bulge' picture was of his crotch and that he had sent it as a joke to Miss Cordova.

And, then, there is this:

'They were all adults, at least to the best of my knowledge'

Well, that's reassuring....because it would be absolutely creepy if he actually knew the people he was sending the pictures to.  Of course, there are a lot of men in jail who used the same defense.

And, speaking of creepy, there's this story by one of the six women Weiner "sexted":

I have nothing against Rep. Weiner. I think he was intrigued by me because I am different than the people he normally meets. I don’t know why he opened up to me in certain ways, but that’s the best explanation I have.


He was trying to get me to talk about myself sexually, and I said, straight up, I’m not an open book. I was real blunt. He would ask me weird things, like “Did you miss me?” I didn’t understand that–how could I miss someone I hadn’t met and didn’t know? What is there to miss about me if you don’t even know me?

He said that he was an open book, maybe way too open. And after that he said to me that I was “too fucking real,” not like other people who were all over him. He realized that I wasn’t taking the bait, and I think that intrigued him enough to send messages to me and open up to me and try to be real, too.

At first I was skeptical that I was really talking to Rep. Weiner, so I asked him to take a picture of himself, which he did. Then I asked him to pick up the phone and call me. I had to hang up because of something that was happening on my end, but then I called back and heard a voice saying, “Congressman Anthony Weiner’s office,” so I hung up. He asked me if I was satisfied, and I guess I was–I didn’t pursue that any more.

Talking to him was sometimes a turn-off because he was so open and just so full of himself, as if he were looking, searching for something. I don’t know if he loved telling me his personal business. I didn’t want him to say more, didn’t want to hear stories about sex with famous people. But I guess he needed to express himself.

Why would this apparently smart person have put himself in such a compromising position?

Sin makes you stupid.