Editorial: There's nothing really funny about 'Weinergate'

Sure, it's funny enough - in a 12-year-old-boy-sense-of-humor kind of way, at least - that a New York congressman by the name of Anthony Weiner was caught, and subsequently admitted (after at first vociferously denying) "sexting," or sending suggestive pictures of himself and having sexually charged conversations with a number of women via the Internet - some even after his marriage. As is being reported elsewhere in this newspaper, one of the women with whom Weiner was "sexting" is a 34-year-old local resident whose online dalliance with the congressman was revealed to a Las Vegas newspaper by her roommate.

It's tempting to see "Weinergate" as a bit of comic relief in a time when the media are filled with reports of the death and destruction left in the wake of tornadoes and floods, not to mention accounts of gas prices rising in a still-moribund economy, and the uncertainty surrounding when, if indeed ever, the economy will be sparked again.

Despite its undeniable appeal as a salacious diversion, though, there are a couple of issues raised by Weiner's situation that deserve attention and introspection.

Among those issues is, of course, the "coarsening of the culture" that pundits like to invoke as something of a modern American disease. And indeed, as a corollary of the question on many minds in the Weiner scandal - "What was he thinking?" - is the broader question of when, and how, that sort of conduct became a part of American life that routinely escapes notice unless it involves the very powerful or the very young.

Sure, it's entertaining to gather around the water cooler or in the break room at work to speculate on what Weiner was thinking as he engaged in such risky and lewd behavior, but it's vastly more important to ask why that kind of behavior has become commonplace.

After all, "sexting" wouldn't be a handy shorthand for

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