The Incredible Shrinking Weiner

If you get elected to Congress, tweet a photo of your erect penis straining at the seams of your underwear, lie about it, then hold a press conference to confess and say you're sorry, you have to face a lot of uncomfortable questions. So it was that Rep. Anthony Weiner concluded 30 minutes of teary and abject apologies by hearing—and ignoring— this question from Benjy Bronk of Howard Stern's radio show .

"In the gray panty photo, were you fully erect?" yelled Bronk. "Were you fully erect or are you capable of more?"

Weiner, who has one of the more cartoonishly expressive faces in Congress—he looks like Jim Carrey if Carrey had a bar mitzvah—bit his lip and walked off camera. His head was turned down at an appropriately ashamed angle. And why not? One Friday-night Twitter #fail, the sort of mistake that countless Web geeks make every day, and he became the first national politician since Bill Clinton whose penis dimensions are a matter of public record. (Clinton officiated Weiner's 2010 wedding, a fact that was always going to be high up in his biography, and still will be, for entirely different reasons.)

Weiner's disclosure went further than anything he'd been accused of so far. Even so, he insisted that this was a sex scandal with no sex. There's no reason to disbelieve him, apart from the fact that he spent 10 days lying. The picture of Weiner that emerged this week was of a publicity hound who was more concerned with celebrity and status than with actual sex.

"I've engaged in several inappropriate communications with women I have met online," Weiner said. "I've exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with these women over the past few years. For the most part, these communications took place before my marriage."

The details of Weiner's online life, as they trickle out, are absolutely pathetic. Based purely on what he's admitted, and what ABC News has confirmed , Weiner spent some real time flirting with female fans, taking photos of his body, and passing them on. We know that Clinton talked on the phone while receiving blow jobs at least three times. Weiner isn't accused of any behavior that interesting, but now everyone who's dealt with him can ruminate: What the hell was he doing as we talked, or after we talked ? It's pure humiliation.

Anyone would be embarrassed by what Weiner did. Had a blogger not grabbed the photo quickly, it would have disappeared from the Internet and Weiner would have been safe with his lies. But no one forced Weiner to spend a full week claiming someone had committed a crime against him and assuring reporters that the truth would come out. When ABC's Jonathan Karl asked Weiner, politely, if it was appropriate to follow a bunch of young women on Twitter, the congressman blew up at him.

The Meming of Life » The incredible shrinking woman Parenting ...

[Continued from Part 2, " The Empire Strikes Back "]

The day before the meeting with the principal and Ms. Warner, Becca made my year by insisting on going as well. She took a half day off work, on short notice and with difficulty. I was so grateful — helps me feel less like a lone loon.

After talking with hundreds of parents over the years in dozens of different situations, I’ve worked up a few guidelines for approaching this kind of thing. It works not just for church-state issues, but any similar conflict:

1. Know your main objective and keep it in focus. It would have been easy, and gratifying, to focus on the first three of our objectives (abject apology, school-wide statement, head on platter). But if it came right down to it (and it often does), the last two were most important: damage control for Delaney, and a greatly-reduced chance of this kind of thing happening to another student in the school. Ever.

2. Frame in terms as broad as possible. It’s almost never just about my child or our family’s rights. If a teacher leads students in a Christian prayer, for example, and I respond as an offended atheist, I’ve drawn this tiny circle around my offended little feet. If instead I defend the constitutional right of all kids and families to freedom of religious belief, I’ve drawn a much larger circle with a much firmer foundation.

3. Don’t let your tone become an issue. This keeps a laser-like focus on the real issue.

4. Find allies with common goals. They’re almost always there. If we treat them as co-perpetrators, we’ve robbed ourselves of powerful leverage.

5. Position yourself as a resource, not a problem to be avoided or contained. When it comes to the issues at hand, as well as district policy and legal precedent, make yourself the most knowledgeable one in the room, then offer your help in navigating that maze, now and in the future.

The meeting began with the obligatory chit chat, then Becca took the floor — not as a parent, but as an appalled educator. For five minutes, in a voice laced with emotion but entirely under control, she explained why Warner’s action violated the central responsibility of educators to their students. She ended by quoting the framing concept in the elementary curriculum.