Congressman Anthony Weiner Displays Appropriate Sympathy for Imus

Thankfully, Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, started things off on the right note today. “Sorry to hear about your eyelash situation,” he told the suffering I-Man. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another: collapsed lung, eyelash.”

Don’t forget cancer. Prostate cancer. And he’s treating it holistically, Congressman. Haven’t you heard?

In more relevant news, General Stanley McChrystal, who is running the show in Afghanistan, was quoted in a forthcoming Rolling Stone article as calling the President and members of his administration “whimps,” which Weiner finds a tad dishonorable.

“You want the Commander-in-Chief to have the support of his generals,” said Weiner, He attributed McChrystal’s frustration to the lack of success in the region, adding, “The back-biting usually starts when a policy’s not going very well.”

The President’s new Afghanistan policy, which includes standing up a perpetually weak Afghan army, was just one of several less-than-desirable choices for tackling the country’s myriad problems.

“So much about foreign policy is not about good options or bad options, it’s about all different levels of gray options,” said Weiner. “And this is the one that they chose.”

He’s not convinced Obama was right, but gave him credit for changing course, likening the previous approach to “being half in there.” Weiner also praised Obama for trying to explain to Americans why the U.S. is in Afghanistan at all.

“Afghanistan is really much more about neighboring Pakistan than anything else,” he said. “You’ve got a nuclear-armed country that is teetering everyday from civilian rule to military rule, and has large swaths of the country that are basically governed by Al-Qaeda. We can’t continue to have that and expect to be safe.”

Imus is hopeful that a stable Afghanistan will some day materialize, but he’s not optimistic. In fact, he’s about as pessimistic about it as many left-leaning commentators like Frank Rich and Jon Stewart have been about Obama’s handling of the massive oil leak disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

“He’s been carrying himself sort of as the administrator-in-chief, rather than leading us,” Weiner said. “There are certain times that you do want to have that sense of empathy from your President, not just this idea that we’re checking all the right boxes.”

The inspirational Obama that Americans fell for during the 2008 campaign does not govern in a similarly rousing manner. But Weiner, for one, would prefer Obama do the right thing to address an untenable situation in the Gulf, the foundation for which he claimed was laid long before Obama was elected.

“You had a governing philosophy in this country, for a very long time, in terms of the permits that were issued, the oversight that was done, that doesn’t go back a year and a half,” he said, referring to the corrupt Mineral Management Service. “That goes back a decade.”

Irritated with his guest for blaming the Bush administration, Imus had some meaningful parting wishes to the soon-to-be-wed Weiner: “I hope the marriage goes through, and she doesn’t come to her senses.”

-Julie Kanfer