SUCH was the atmosphere at the podium it would have taken a chainsaw to cut it.

As Anthony Weiner, aspiring New York mayor, and his wife, Huma Abedin, held a press conference to try to explain how he had managed to be caught with his trousers down in cyberspace not once, but twice, it was impossible not to feel a little sorry for Ms Abedin. Being the wronged wife in American politics, in politics in general, is such a tired old role, and she certainly looked weary.

Still, she managed to rally enough to declare that she still loved her husband, she had forgiven him, and she believed in him. He had done wrong, again, but this highly accomplished woman, an aide to Hillary Clinton, was standing by her man. This was country and western, Manhattan-style, where ties from Barneys and shoes from Saks took the place of polka dot neckerchiefs and cowboy boots. Still, as is often the case when the countryside was involved, there was a distinct whiff of something in the air. And it wasn't freshly cut hay.

The man behind the whiff was Mr Weiner. The former Democrat Congressman and wannabe mayor of NYC has form in this area. Two years ago, he sent out a picture on social media that led to his being forced to resign from Congress. After initially claiming his account had been hacked, he was eventually forced, kicking and screaming, to admit the truth and resign his seat in June 2011. As for the picture he sent, this being a family newspaper let's just say it was not one of a dog in a Halloween costume.

His fall from grace being spectacular, Mr Weiner set about proving F Scott Fitzgerald wrong. There would be a second act in this American life, and it was to be the mayor of New York. To that end, a comeback campaign began that encompassed, among other things, a magazine interview with the couple, complete with happy family photos with them and their baby son.

It now appears, from the account of another party in the new cyber scandal, that the show of a fresh start was just that – a show. According to her, he was attempting to woo her in cyberspace just last year, after he had initially donned sackcloth and ashes and said he wouldn't make the same mistakes again. America and, courtesy of the internet, the rest of the world, can now find out what Mr Weiner said while posing as his on-line alter ego, "Carlos Danger". As one Twitter user said, "Antonio Estupido" would perhaps have been a more accurate alias.

There is something at once thoroughly new millennium about the Weiner scandal, and yet so old-fashioned. Sex scandals in British politics are in the main naff. The Profumo affair had a certain dash, involving as it did posh people, common sorts and a Russian military attache. Since then it has been all downhill, from David Mellor (Footie Shirt Claim Gate), Ron Davies (Badgergate), John Major/Edwina Currie (Nightmare Gate), and many another, not forgetting Scotland's own Tommy Sheridan (More Gates Than Windsor Castle Gate). Careers are still ruined, but it is all more Carry On than the carryings on of, say, the Kennedys.

In America they do things differently. It was the Kennedys who created the impression that politicians' affairs in the modern era could be carried on without fear of exposure. If White House walls didn't speak then, what was the betting they would keep silent again when Bill Clinton, lifelong admirer of JFK, took office? Mr Clinton certainly called that one wrong.

One man who clearly did forget the lesson of the Clinton scandal was, of course, Mr Weiner. His case, though, very much belongs in the current technological age. Mr Weiner stands accused of being a serial "sexter", a sender of sexual messages over the internet. His was a cyber affair, conducted in snatched bytes here and there. Perhaps because it took place in the ether he reasoned that it was not truly "real" and therefore not that dangerous.

Yet however much he tries to explain his behaviour away this is a classic example of a politician, a powerful person, throwing his power around. He behaved that way because he thought he could. For someone who has ambitions to make the rules for others, and insist they stick by them, that is not a good look. At least he has not called himself a "sex addict", that disease that strangely only seems to afflict the rich, powerful and good-looking. But he was, and is, asking for another chance to show that his problems are behind him.

There will be those who argue that what politicians do in their private lives has nothing to do with politics. You can be a great man – with the odd exception, women tend not to be the ones doing the pursuing – but not so great, sometimes, to others. Scold the sin, not the sinner. In politics, though, it is different. Among many other things, politics is about character. If he fails to treat other people with respect – people such as the family and friends and supporters who defended him first time around – why should anyone else respect him? Had this been the first time Mr Weiner had to issue apologies to his wife the public might have forgiven him. But to be in this position again shows contempt for those he is asking to pay his wages.

He presumably believes that by having his wife by his side at a press conference he can survive the scandal. Wrong. If anything, it will reduce sympathy for them both. But then again, she was only following the example of her old boss in standing by her man. Still, times have changed on that front, too. When Hillary Clinton did her Tammy Wynette she believed it was the right thing to do. Though the way she told it, she was no Tammy. At the time of the Gennifer Flowers scandal she said in a TV interview: "I'm not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I'm sitting here because I love him and I respect him and I honour what he's been through and what we've been through together." One wonders how much she has thought about that moment since.

As can be seen in the Weiner case, one important way that cyberspace has changed matters is that it is so much easier for those who feel they have been wronged by the powerful to exercise power themselves; in this instance, by taking their story to a website. The traditionally weaker, the ones who could be hushed up or discredited by fixers in the past, are taking back some of the control. That shift can only be to the good.

As for Mr Weiner, he has said that as far as the mayoral race goes he wants to put all this business behind him and move on to the primary in seven weeks' time. In reality, the only thing that is behind Mr Weiner is his career.