WASHINGTON: “The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy,“ an American lawmaker once boasted, the quote being emblematic of the kind of escapades that can cause political defeat.
Many US politicians have been felled on account of their peccadilloes (Gary Hart and John Edwards to name two in presidential elections), as a result of which today's candidates take great care to sanitize their campaigns of any such scandals.
The shadow of such a disaster has always hung over Hillary Clinton, not so much an account of her or her husband's escapades, but over the vulnerabilities of her principle aide
Huma Abedin .
Aside from being in the crosshairs of the Republican right-wing because she is seen as a Islamist fifth columnist, she is also married to Anthony Weiner, a former US Congressman, whose serial transgressions are every wife's nightmare.
After surviving several indiscretions, one of which caused the unfortunately-named (in this case) Weiner to resign from Congress, their marriage is again on the rocks following yet another sexting scandal, this one with the potential to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign given that Abedin is virtually her bodyguard and is also seen as her surrogate daughter.
After a New York tabloid published a picture of Weiner sexting a photo of his crotch with their four-year old son next to him (while Huma was on the campaign trail), she announced that they are separating, in what is purportedly and firstly an effort at damage control for her long-term boss (she has been with Hillary since 1996).
“After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband. Anthony and I remain devoted to doing what is best for our son, who is the light of our life. During this difficult time, I ask for respect for our privacy,“ Abedin said in a statement.
Privacy is something she is not going to get from the right-wing hordes that are already slavering over the red meat thrown by the conspiracy brigade that has suggested she is a Islamist Trojan horse in the Clinton dispensation.
There is also no doubt that the scandal will become political fodder in the campaign, and the
Republican candidate Donald Trump himself jumped on it quickly even as some reports suggested that Weiner was ensnared on Twitter by a female Trump supporter. “Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him,“ he said in a statement, adding, “I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told?“ “It's just another example of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. It is possible that our country and its security have been greatly compromised by this,“ he added, expanding Abedin's personal horror into a national security issue.
Trump himself is no saint when it comes to promiscuity, and the more illiberal Democrats have sniped at his immigrant wives with the thinly veiled suggestion that his Presidency cannot be trusted either because of his allegedly close ties with Russia. But for now, the Clinton campaign is on the defensive, even though the quick response of Abedin sundering her marriage with Weiner is aimed at salvaging the situation .