Op Ed: We Weiners have feelings, too

Today's Op Ed is written by my dachshund, Bonnie, whose opinions are her own.

When John F. Kennedy visited Berlin in 1963, he stood in front of the wall dividing that beleaguered city and declared solidarity with its citizens by announcing, "Ich bin ein Berliner" – I am a Berliner. 

The crowd went wild.

What the press didn’t report is that the president of the United States had just told a million people, “I am a jelly doughnut.” (That’s what “Berliner” means in German. If he meant to say “a Berliner” as in “a citizen of Berlin,” he should have omitted the “ein.” But I digress.)

Well here’s my personal message for beleaguered New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner who, this past week, has been the butt of endless jokes because of his last name which just happens to be slang for the part of his anatomy he allegedly photographed and texted to several women.

My message is this: Anthony, I share your pain. I stand by you. Because Ich bin ein Weiner, too.

To be specific, I am a dachshund, a breed that has been called many hurtful names over the years.

We have been called "Stubborn."

We have been labeled as “Dumb” by so-called experts who rank us in the lower one-third of the 79 recognized breeds in terms of intelligence. (If I’m so dumb, how was I able to write this Op-Ed? Have you ever met a Labrador retriever or poodle half as articulate? Of course you haven't. Most are functionally illiterate.)

We have been called “Hot Dogs.”

We have been called “Sausages.” My own mother calls me a “Devious Sausage” whenever I trick my brother Billy Ray, who is also a dachshund and her favorite dog, out of his breakfast, as I do every morning. (Billy, I freely admit, would rank # 80 out of the 79 breeds if he were a breed unto himself. That’s probably why mom is so over-protective and takes his side in every dispute.)

But of all the many hurtful names we have been called, the one we dachshunds find most hateful is the name we share in common with Anthony – Weiner.

Please, please, please, I hope all you readers understand that we dachshunds cannot help the way we are shaped. Many centuries ago German farmers bred us to dig badgers out of the deep narrow burrows in which they hide. As a result, we have elongated bodies and short, stubby legs that inconsiderate people like to blurt out remind them of a product made by Oscar Mayer.

You cannot imagine how much it hurts to hear someone say, “Oh, look at that cute little Weiner."

If you are overweight, how would you feel if someone called you a “Lard-ass?” If you are underweight, how would you like to be referred to as a “Pretzel?”

See what I mean?

So, Anthony, on behalf of thousands of your fellow Weiners who have found ourselves the punchlines of cruel jokes that rob us of our dignity, I urge you to hold your head erect and, above all, not pull out.  

As Felix Frankfurter, my favorite Supreme Court justice, once wrote, “If one starts with the assumption that, in the absence of specific congressional authority, a fixed rule of law precludes contracting officers from providing in a government contract terms reasonably calculated to assure its performance even though there be no money loss through a particular default, there is no problem.” 

I don’t know what the hell he was saying but the fact that someone named Frankfurter made it to the Supreme Court is proof positive we Weiners can be anything we want to be … including mayor of New York.