Weiner request for leave may be transition

Talk about a long goodbye.

Friday is the traditional day for announcing resignations under fire. Rep. Anthony Weiner passed up that option. So as expected, powerful party colleagues Saturday began urging that he quit.

Weiner followed one of the most timeworn tactics of electoral life, which is to try to have things both ways.

The statement from his spokeswoman Risa Heller said he "departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person." To "make himself well," he "will request a short leave of absence from the House . . . "

Thus, Weiner gives the appearance that he "departs" -- without actually departing in a meaningful way. He gets to convince some people that he's confronting his problems -- without identifying them.

This nonadmission admission makes speculation fair game. What could possibly explain the hypersexuality, the buff physical preening, the famous rage-fest on the House floor?

It's also fair game to wonder if Weiner has any political future. Now his own party, not just the GOP, seeks to throw him out of the 9th Congressional District for someone in their comfort zone.

"I think this is a process that will lead to his resignation," said veteran political consultant George Arzt. "Once the Democratic Party finds that he is a distraction, and obstructing getting its messages out, then obviously, he can no longer work within the system to continue to hold out."

If he resigns, of course, he can go explore his inner self and try to run again as early as next year. But by then there will be a new incumbent in his district, unlikely to be dislodged.

His latest gambit shows Weiner's devotion to another electoral maxim: Incumbency is everything -- no matter how surreal.