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Glenn Greenwald: Why Was Rep. Weiner Forced to Resign While Bush and Cheney Walk Free?

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Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) resigned Thursday after House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and others said the scandal he created by sending lewd photographs of himself over Twitter had caused a distraction to Democrats preparing for the 2012 election. “He was forced out of office over—it wasn’t even rising to the level of a sex scandal,” says our guest, Salon.com political blogger Glenn Greenwald. “The Democratic leadership … all acted to force him out of office. And yet, throughout the Bush years, when you had torture and illegal eavesdropping and the war in Iraq, that left hundreds of thousands dead, Nancy Pelosi said impeachment is off the table.” [includes rush transcript]

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Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, you’ve also written about Anthony Weiner, “The Joys of Repressed Voyeuristic Titillation.” Very quickly. And then I want to end on gay marriage in New York. The legislature could be poised to pass gay marriage as early as today in New York. But first, Anthony Weiner.

GLENN GREENWALD: Right. The Anthony Weiner thing is just extraordinary to me in that he was forced out of office over — it wasn’t even rising to the level of a sex scandal. By all accounts, he never met any of these women, never had sex with them. And yet, the Democratic leadership — Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and the rest of them — all acted to force him out of office. And yet, throughout the Bush years, when you had torture and illegal eavesdropping and the war in Iraq, that left hundreds of thousands dead, Nancy Pelosi said impeachment is off the table. Barack Obama said he will not allow any investigations of those crimes, on the grounds that we have to look forward, not backward. And that, to me, just shows the warped priorities of the Democratic Party and the country, that Anthony Weiner was forced from office, and yet George Bush and Dick Cheney continue to walk free.

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