Weinergate marks the end of the Clinton era

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., has achieved something by behaving so spectacularly shamefully. Unless I miss my guess, he has revived the concept of sexual morality. Even for a jaded nation, this is one sex scandal too far. We’ve had it. Our capacity to remain nonjudgmental on sexual matters — as we’ve been tirelessly instructed to do for 40 years — seems to have reached its end point.

The national reaction to Weiner’s conduct, in contrast to previous sex scandals (and there have been too many to count in the past two decades), has been not amusement (though jokes made the rounds) but disgust.