Ethics? In Congress?

Jim Dwyer has an article about Anthony Weiner in The New York Times:

The matter of Anthony D. Weiner, unclothed congressman, is being lodged by Democratic Party elders with the House ethics committee, a holding room where it will remain until either it, or he, goes away. Those elders must be hoping to heaven that Mr. Weiner departs before the machinery of investigation is gassed up and rumbles toward the Internet Protocol addresses where he composed his epistles.
By some schools of thought, if he wrote these personal messages on government equipment, this could be seen as unethical behavior.
Still, ethics hardly seems the right discipline for this affair. Psychiatry might help.
Any reckoning of the craziness of his behavior must take account of his role among Congressional Democrats. Mr. Weiner was his party’s id. He spoke brazenly against Republican plans and icons, taking swings at people like Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann. Less than a month ago, he told a reporter for The New York Times that he knew that his own behavior was bound to be scrutinized.
In fact, conservative bloggers, led by an individual identified as @PatriotUSA76, were tracking his Twitter account so carefully that they sent warnings to women who were being followed online by Mr. Weiner to be wary of him. Mr. Weiner was copied into those warnings. Even so, knowing that he was being watched, he kept up his stream of lewd communications with strangers, people who identified themselves as women.
A longstanding political friend of Mr. Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, said that he was trying to come to grips with the congressman’s recklessness. “If you look at the sin— is it public or is it private? It’s private,” said the friend, who did not want to be identified. “But you go beyond sin, this is mental illness. It’s strange.” The friend said he worried about the toll on Mr. Weiner, who has worked only in politics as an adult. In 2000, Mr. Weiner’s eldest brother, facing financial pressure and struggling with alcohol, was killed by a car as he crossed a busy divided highway in Alexandria, Virginia.
Asked about the congressman’s emotional state, Mr. Weiner’s spokesman referred to his comments at the news conference, when the congressman, weeping, said that he could not explain his behavior, but that he intended to keep his seat in Congress.
No one can say where the Weiner case will wind up— lying to Wolf Blitzer about Twitter is not a known federal crime— but history shows that where there is a will, someone can find a way to prosecute.
You might think this is a matter for his household to decide, in the first instance, and for his constituents to figure out for themselves come the next election. Nevertheless, the fact is that dishonesty about sexual behavior has been criminalized. Henry Cisneros, a member of President Bill Clinton’s cabinet, lied to the FBI about money that he gave to a mistress; he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, and the investigation went on for most of a decade and cost $22 million.
Mr. Clinton, who testified falsely in a civil suit about sexual encounters with an intern, was investigated for perjury and obstruction of justice at a cost of $12.5 million.
John Edwards was recently indicted for arranging payments to a mistress with whom he had fathered a child. (Interestingly, one of Mr. Clinton’s old defense lawyers, Lanny Breuer, is among those leading the prosecution of Mr. Edwards.)
Who could bear the thought that we are about to begin months of inquiries over whether Mr. Weiner sent semi-naked pictures of himself to strangers from his personal BlackBerry or from a government-issued computer? Or whether he brought discredit on the House of Representatives? Having abetted nearly a decade of wars, and permitting fat cats to bring the economy to a state of collapse, Congress ought to be able to tolerate a few embarrassing and crude messages sent by one foolish man in Queens.