South Bronx to South Bay: He’ll always be a Weiner

I met Anthony Weiner once. Well, I sort of met him. In 2005, when he was battling the Bronx’s native son, Fernando Ferrer, for the Democratic mayoral nomination, the Brooklyn/Queens Congressman made a brief foray into enemy territory to appear at a rally staged by South Bronx Churches, the local community-organizing arm of the Industrial Areas Foundation. He came in late and left early. Standard IAF practice is to allow politicians exactly three minutes to speak. Just as he was cranking up, a little Puerto Rican woman approached and tapped him on the shoulder: “Your time’s up,” she whispered. “I’m not used to shutting up so soon,” he laughed, and the crowd laughed with him. The IAF knew the value of Twittering long before Twitter existed. Weiner would later become adept — or inept — with the Tweet. He was then subjected to the standard IAF practice of demanding yes-or-no answers to the questions on their agenda: Do you support our proposals on education reform? Housing for the homeless? Gun control? Like almost everybody I’ve seen in this hot-seat, Weiner started off with, “I’ll answer your question, but first I’d like to say …” — whereupon the leader would interrupt: “Just answer…

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