Flashback Mash-Up: Media Loved ‘Whole Foods’ Weiner Marriage, Boasted of ‘Why Huma Stayed’

August 29th, 2016 3:48 PM

As most of the internet knows by now, top Hillary Clinton confidante and lifeline Huma Abedin announced her separation from soon-to-be-ex-husband and former New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner following new allegations that Weiner (aka Carlos Danger) is still sexting women despite being caught multiple times and led to his resignation from Congress (thanks to the late Andrew Breitbart). 

When Abedin’s statement broke late Monday morning, a few of us in the NewsBusters news room perused our vast archives and found a litany of instances in which the media gushed and praised the Abedin-Weiner marriage as akin to “Whole Foods” with one profile hailing “Why Huma Stayed.” 

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Here are a few of the stories we found to be worth checking out for this extended and timely media flashback (in no particular order):

NYT Says Anthony Weiner Is ‘Almost Shakespearean’; Marriage Is Like ‘Whole Foods’ — May 16, 2016

Former NYT Columnist Rich: Weiner Scandal Won't Harm Hillary, Will Boost Bill Clinton's Profile — August 2, 2013

New York Magazine Writer Prat-Fawns Over Mrs. Weiner — July 16, 2013 (Below are two separate quotes from then-writer Mark Jacobson describing Huma’s courtship of Weiner)

“Huma looked at Weiner with bemusement. It was quite possible that she was the most cosmopolitan human being on Earth.”

“The harsh, cheap buck lighting in the coffee shop couldn’t lay a glove on her. By the time she sat down, the harmony of angels had vanquished the tinny background music from every corporate space on the planet.”

NY Times' Long, Sympathetic Profile of Disgraced Anthony Weiner Having Intended Effect — April 11, 2013 (8,000 word profile that was, in the words of NewsBusters contributing writer Clay Waters, a “sympathetic profile-slash-therapy session”)

Meredith Vieira: ‘If My Husband Was Sexting I’d Cut It Off’ — August 3, 2013

Irony Alert: 'The Good Wife' Touts New Feminism and Huma Abedin for Standing by Her Pervy Husband — April 25, 2016

Good Wife character “Hannah”: A lot of people my age think it's a throwback to an old kind of domesticity, but I think it's a harbinger of a new feminism. Like Huma Abedin, you know? Women should do what they want, even if what they want is to stand by their man.

Networks Play Promotional Video of 'Comeback Kid' Anthony Weiner Fighting for a 'Second Chance' — May 22, 2013

Shameless: People Mag Takes Another Turn As Huma Abedin's Journalistic Weiner Cleaner — August 4, 2013

Daily Beast: Cut Weiner a Break, America, Teens Sext All the Time — August 7, 2013

Flashback: The Worst of the Media During Weiner's First Scandal — July 23, 2013

Tell the Truth 2016