Huma Abedin, Hilary Clinton’s right-hand political aide, announced on Monday that she is finally, finally, separating from her husband, former congressman and one-time NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, who has found himself in the throes of yet another sexting scandal. Weiner—who at this point is more recognizable by his bare chest and the waistband of his jeans than by his face—reportedly sent photos of his crotch to a random woman who went straight to the New York Post with the story, probably with the benefit of a major payday.
“After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband,” Huma said in a statement. “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.”
Huma was already at her wits’ end. Anyone who saw the Weiner doc—that ill-fated attempt at revitalizing the Weiner name by documenting his 2012 mayoral run, which was thwarted by his second sexting scandal—detected Huma’s barely suppressed rage, simmering at the surface of her perfectly moisturized skin. “It’s like living a nightmare,” Huma told the cameraman back then. Every shot of Huma revealed a woman desperately trying to prevent her eyes from rolling to the back of her head at the spectacle of her halfwit husband. There’s an impulse among commentators to question Huma’s decision to stay with him for as long as she did, but let they who has never found themselves simultaneously charmed and repulsed by some idiot man throw the first stone. I’m certainly not qualified.
But let’s be clear: Weiner is going to be a footnote in the history of Huma Abedin, a woman destined surely to rule us all. Do I agree with her politics? No. Do I think her portrait might one day encrust the shell of the Liberty Bell? Yes. The woman has weathered not one, not two, but three sexting scandals by her no-good goober husband, and is still at the helm of a historic and so-far extremely successful presidential campaign. “Powerful, glamorous, and ubiquitous, Abedin is in many ways the engine at the center of Clinton’s well-run machine, crucial and yet largely out of sight,” wrote Vogue magazine in a fawning profile. She was doing pretty fine while married to that bumbling shmuck. God knows what she’s capable of now that’s rid of the dead weight. If she shares the Clintonian tendency for imperialistic military exploits in the Global South, worldwide domination is not just a glint in Huma’s eye, but an iCal event scheduled for Friday.
