Will Reps. Anthony Weiner and Peter King Hold Hands Tonight?

It was no problem, really, that Imus got to Rep. Anthony Weiner ten minutes later than planned, because Weiner and the rest of the audience were afforded the opportunity to learn all about Imus’s upcoming procedure to remove precancerous cells from his vocal chords.
 
Once his presence was finally acknowledged, Weiner, a Democrat from New York, said about the surgery, “The jokes just kind of write themselves, don’t they?”
 
The State of the Union, however, which the President will deliver tonight, has likely been worked on by a team of writers for weeks, and Weiner predicted Obama will focus on the importance of getting America back to work.
 
“We’re making some progress on the economy, and we’ve got to make sure that this Republican Congress doesn’t drive whatever progress we’ve made off a cliff,” he said.
 
Though his lapel bore no boutonniere (not yet, anyway), Weiner divulged that he and fellow New Yorker Peter King, like many of their colleagues, would breach party lines and sit next to one another during tonight’s State of the Union, an event that has begun to more closely resemble a high school prom than a distinguished gathering of lawmakers. The duo will sit on King’s Republican side of the aisle, a technicality Weiner insisted upon so that he would really stick out every time he leaps from his seat to applaud whatever mundane thing the President just said. 
 
As for the point of this whole charade, Weiner acknowledged much of it is symbolic. “But I wouldn’t minimize it,” he said. “It’s nice, I think, that the American people see that we get the message, that if there was any silver lining of the horror of Tucson, it’s that people are starting to realize that words have consequences, and the tone of our debate needs to be measured.”
 
While he and King disagree on many issues, it doesn’t mean the two of them can’t work together, even though, as Weiner observed, King hasn’t been right about anything since the 1980s. Because, you know, the ideas Weiner and Obama have put forth are working so well.
 
“The President is doing just fine,” Weiner said. “But don’t lump me in with him.”
 
At Weiner’s willingness to throw someone who is not only the President of the United States, but who is also his boss under the bus, Imus sensed a kindred spirit, then tried to throw that kindred spirit under a bus of his own by asking why he acted like “a total jerk” during a recent interview about the estate tax with Fox News’s Megyn Kelly.
 
“I don’t just go on Fox to be a rented mule, I don’t just go on to be flogged,” Weiner said, admitting he regretted looking away from the camera and rolling his eyes during his chat with Kelly. “If you watch that interview, repeatedly she asked a question that I answered, and answered again, but she wanted to be in an argument with me.”
 
Kelly’s had been asking why the estate tax exists, since money people inherit has already been taxed, usually many times over. “I believe as a fundamental matter that you tax income we labor for, that we work hard for each day, at a lower level than things we inherit,” Weiner said. “That was the answer I gave, she didn’t like it.” He then accused Kelly and her fellow Fox News anchors of acting like “advocates” at times, rather than interviewers.
 
“I’m glad you’re not here so Charles and I could grab you and shake you like a rag doll,” Imus told Weiner, who noted that few people wind up actually paying the estate tax because there are so many exemptions in place. Either way, he’s got his fingers crossed that one particular estate comes due before legions of others.
 
“I frankly hope that Deirdre pays the estate tax sooner than later on your estate,” Weiner said. To a cancer patient. Nice.
 
-Julie Kanfer