Remember when John Ensign paying off his mistress was the lead story for six straight days?
And Weiner is offering increasingly bizarre and unconvincing responses to the media.
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[…] in large part because I’m having trouble figuring out why anyone cares. That said, John Cole said something the other day that got me thinking. Remember when John Ensign paying off his mistress was the lead […]
Lolis
Why is Weiner talking about it all?
Paul in KY
I haven’t seen the member in question, but was it so bodacious that he’s like ‘Yeah, yeah, it could be mine…’?
Otherwise, he sounds too evasive for me here. I heard Mr. Stewart roasted him a bit last night.
Mattminus
I admire his ability to keep making dick jokes in response to the whole thing.
Really, though, who fucking cares?
Cat Lady
Who cares. This whole country is fucking retarded.
Trentrunner
For you Sully non-readers, today he deigned to address this scandale du jour, by pleading for tolerance for “complex human beings.”
In Sullyspeak, “complex human beings” is ALWAYS code for “Please don’t bother me AGAIN about the fact that I solicited unsafe sex back when I was lecturing others not to do it.” (Google “Sullivan milky loads” if you want the deets.)
Hypocritical fucker. (Or fuckee, as the case may be.)
meander
And remember when there was 24/7 coverage of
revelations that Sen. Vitter called prostitutes from the floor of the House of Representatives? And constant calls that he resign? No? Me neither.
Han's Solo
Whoever it is in the picture has nothing to be ashamed of.
Weiner didn’t send the tweet and there is nothing wrong with either wearing underwear or taking pictures of underwear.
I think what is really going on here is that the media is trying to prove how stupid they are. Look, we got the hint when you started chasing Sarah Palin around the North East. We now know how stupid the media is, they can stop showing off.
JonF
Weiner should just shut up and hope that there’s verifiable evidence of hacking. There’s a lot of fishiness with the image that was tweeted(no one saw it but this conserv activist, Weiner’s BB didn’t tweet or transmit it, it appears to have been altered), he should let that do the talking.
jacy
May I chime in with another resounding “Who cares?”
Zifnab
We played this game in the 90s. It only took six years and a dozen Congressional investigations into everything from real estate to suicide to nail the President as a man who once got a blow job from a White House intern.
Weiner shat all over the media. Now the media is out for revenge.
Seth
I thought there was proof of hacking?
No.
How about this. It makes the technical case for the ability to hack yfrog.
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2011/06/weiner-affair-close-to-solution-but-i.html
Adrienne
Oh good GOD. I’m tired of hearing about this already. It’s a fake scandal. People send peen pics everyday and the girl was over 18. It’s dumb, but really not that egregious. Can we move on?
(Further, of COURSE it was hacked. Apparently it was sent via “Direct Message”. The ONLY way anyone other than the sender or the receiver could have gotten the image was by hacking one of their accounts. End of story.)
Pancake
He’s dead forever in his NYC district, a basically Republican one, and he’s likely forever dead as far as a run for NYC mayor is concerned. As Gleenwald so elegantly put it, “Good riddance!”
cbear
Unfortunately, and as much as I was hoping it was James O’Keefe on the grassy knoll with the boner in his hand, it appears as if the lone wiener theory may turn out to be true.
Drats.
dpcap
To those of you who are saying it isn’t a big deal: it is a big deal if it’s sexual harassment.
JonF
Of course no one will cover this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/02/twitter-photo-anthony-weiner
Jay in Oregon
That’s the part of the story that’s interesting to me because it makes no sense. If it’s not his pig in a blanket in the picture, just fucking say so!
Joseph Nobles
I’m now thinking this is an actual picture of AW. He made it for someone before he got married. That person or someone else who got it or stole it from the original person busted him like this. That patriot76 doofus probably had something to do with the setup.
I hope that’s the case. Because every time I hear AW talk, I buy less and less of what he’s selling. What was that they said about the original Gate? It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.
taylormattd
Really? I find his answers to be both understandable and far more honest than the usual fare.
The guy obviously has, or at least thinks he may have, at some point in his life, taken an underwear pic.
So he’s not pulling the typical politician line and categorically denying it.
But the real story here is that it has become increasingly clear the photo was altered and posted by someone who wasn’t him. You may not have seen this, but now even Brietbart’s former employee is saying it sounds like a hit piece.
PeakVT
Just in case anyone forgot our trolls never know what they are talking about, the PVI is D. 5+ for Weiner’s district.
Lojasmo
@Pancake:
Boy, I hope this is
Notsnark.Ny-9 is D+5.
STFU.
Edit: beat by a minute. /fail
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Pancake:
It’s hard to find good trolls nowadays.
El Cid
What we need to know is, if it isn’t Weiner’s penis, then whose penis is it?
This is crucial to the story, and our media intend to keep hold of this story and not let go, whether or not they’re rubbing somebody wrong, or the various details begin to become harder and harder to follow.
At some point, whoever the owner is, they’re going to stop holding back and issue a significant release so that this story can come to a climax.
Then, and only then, can the media relax this important pursuit of news which satisfies the public’s need to keep watch on what’s happening behind closed doors when the powerful are involved.
MattR
@dpcap: Given that nobody has claimed any sort of harrassment, I guess that means it is no big deal.
BAM
Do most guys have pictures of themselves in underwear? I’m not a guy so I have no idea. This is a serious question – no snark. Do the men commenting here have these type of pics? It wouldn’t even occur to me to take naked or semi naked pics of myself and then put them somewhere that could be hacked. John Cole, are there any pics of you out there in your skivvies? Doug J? Mister Mix?
Lojasmo
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
No shit, right?
Nate Dawg
@Adrienne:
It wasn’t sent via Direct Message. DM’s can only be seen by the sender and receiver. This was allegedly seen by a third party, so it was a normal tweet, directed at another person. Read up on twitter if this confuses you.
Also John, you should really read up on this before spouting off. There was absolutely no need to “hack” the twitter account as Charles Johnson and others have demonstrated that anyone may send a tweet linking to a linked yfrog account simply by MMS’ing a picture to a yfrog email address. The level of sophistication to pull this off isn’t very high, and seeing as this is exactly what the tweet was–a linked picture on his yfrog account–it seems likely that this was the breach, rather than actual hacking.
Two things make me doubt Weiner though:
1. The tweet before the tweet-in-question said something like “That’s 545 in Seattle”, referencing the time of his appearance on MSNBC. Why did he send this tweet? Strange considering the tweet-in-question was directed toward a girl in Seattle. Now if she had asked was time his appearance was in Seattle specifically, that would answer the question, but her twitter account has been deleted so there is no way of knowing.
2. Why is Weiner evading the question of whether that is his crotch? Do you own gray boxer briefs? And have you ever snapped a photo of your crotch with a hard-on? That should be easily answered…..
Strange how he should have an airtight alibi with the yfrog security hole but for some reason won’t categorically deny that he is in the photo.
El Cid
What we need to know is, if it isn’t Weiner’s p_ee_niz, then whose p_ee_niz is it?
This is crucial to the story, and our media intend to keep hold of this story and not let go, whether or not they’re rubbing somebody wrong, or the various details begin to become harder and harder to follow.
At some point, whoever the owner is, they’re going to stop holding back and issue a significant release so that this story can come to a climax.
Then, and only then, can the media relax this important pursuit of news which satisfies the public’s need to keep watch on what’s happening behind closed doors when the powerful are involved.
************
Forgive the repost. I forgot the moderation patrol
Lojasmo
@El Cid:
It is mine.
John Cole
@Nate Dawg: I have read up on it. You can do the yfrog thing, but you need the string of letters to do it. Tommy Xtopher and some wingnut at Red State demonstrated.
Jay in Oregon
@dpcap:
I’m not saying that Weiner should get away with sexually harassing someone, if he did send the pic and it was unsolicited. But for God’s sake, the person who started this witch hunt is Andrew Breitbart, one of the least credible people in American politics. If I were in Weiner’s place, I’d deny that the picture is mine, point to the evidence that the tweet was faked or that his Twitter account was compromised, and let it go.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
@Trentrunner: OH GOD IS THERE A TOOL I CAN USE TO EXTRACT MY BRAINS QUICKLY
MattR
@taylormattd: I pretty much agree with this. I have not seen all of Weiner’s interviews, but he strikes me as someone with little technical know-how who doesn’t want to make any definitive statements that might come back to bite him. It also seems like he currently thinks this was a prank as opposed to an attempt at ratfucking (If you believe that, it explains why he did not go to the authorities since that could lead to a harsh penalty for the prankster)
@John Cole:
Figuring out that string of letters is trivial.
Joseph Nobles
Here’s a GOS link about some of this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/29/980400/-Breitbarts
The way patriotusa76 somehow knows 2 weeks earlier about an impending sex scandal involving photos and a Dem congressman is a lot more eye-raising to me than Weiner mentioning what would have been a non-sequitur reference to Seattle.
Old Dan and Little Ann
The MSM is just one big episode of “A Current Affair” or “Inside Edition.” What a fucking joke.
jeff
@Pancake:
Queens and Brooklyn are not predominantly Republican.
Guster
It’s my cock.
Not my knee, though.
Nate Dawg
@MattR:
It is trivial. The string of letters is very short and limited, and it even uses repetitions of strings! (Same “password” is generated for multiple users).
Several people have created a script that can generate it quickly, because yfrog had no “lock out” feature.
@John Cole
Sorry, misunderstood the hacking part of your commentary. Just thought that the yfrog security hole was such strong exculpatory evidence it should have received more weight from you. But then again, there’s really no incentive to go balls-to-the-wall defending AW when he won’t even deny the photo is of him.
The way I see it
1) The photo is his and he sent it.
OR
2) The photo is not his and he did not send it.
Those two possibilities are much, much more likely than
3) The photo is his but someone else sent it.
That’s too much to swallow, pardon the pun.
JonF
@John Cole: Unless Weiner is a master hacker, the supposed picture didn’t come from him or his blackberry.
JonF
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/89311/exclusive-new-forensic-details-about-weinergate-photo
A Humble Lurker
Yeah, after looking at all the talk (the girl in question saying she never saw it and has been harassed by the creep who did, demonstrations of how easy it is to hack these things, Breitbart, etc.) seems likely that he didn’t send the picture, but isn’t sure if it isn’t some long ago thing he did and forgot that someone stole.
JenJen
OK. I haven’t paid much attention to this nontroversy, mainly because as soon as I heard that notorious smearmongerer with zero credibility Breitbart was behind it somehow, I tuned out.
But… as someone who spends an inordinate amount of time on Twitter, this story isn’t making any sense to me. It seems to me that to buy into the claim that Weiner sent that pic to some follower, you’d have to know little or nothing about Twitter. Did anyone besides the guy (patriot something?) who re-tweeted it ever even see the original tweet? Anyone at all? Weiner has almost 60,000 followers; it’s impossible for me to believe that this one person is the only person who saw the original tweet come through. If nobody has a screencap of the original tweet, then I call bullshit. And why did the original re-tweeter do the old-fashioned “RT” thing instead of clicking the “retweet” button? I mean, I can fake RT anything the old-fashioned way.
Anyhow. Not to get too into the weeds over Twitter, but it doesn’t make any damned sense.
Lojasmo
This is stupid. Though I expect the lamestream media to cover it, no left of center blogger should feed the trolls.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
maybe weiner is trying to have a “long form” moment, by stretching out the debunking and debriefing, until he gets the best play.
Joseph Nobles
@Nate Dawg: “Those two possibilities are much, much more likely than
3) The photo is his but someone else sent it.
That’s too much to swallow, pardon the pun.”
I agree. I offer the possibility only out of quiet desperation.
Adrienne
@Nate Dawg: Ummm, I actually have a twitter account, and I’ve had one since late 2009 so I’m MORE than familiar with the mechanics of DMs vs regular tweets vs replies and who can/can’t see what. I’d heard it was sent via DM, which is why I posted what I did. If that’s not the case, I’ll retract/revise my statement. However, your response was a more than a little dickish (pun intended) though, so, kiss my ass.
John Cole
No. I see myself naked every day,and would never inflict that kind of horror on an unsuspecting internet. I have a conscience.
jeff
@Trentrunner:
His sentiment is the right one, in my opinion, and hardly hypocritical. I don’t even want to hear about why you are so fascinated with his sex sins.
Nate Dawg
@Adrienne: Sorry to be Dickish, but why would anyone have seen the tweet at all if it was sent via DM? If you know what DM’s are, then that would mean this wasn’t sent via DM.
shortstop
@A Humble Lurker: Yes. Or he knows for sure it’s his picture and doesn’t want to lie by denying it since he doesn’t know what info will come out in the end.
And if he didn’t Tweet it, and it certainly looks like he didn’t, why the hell should he have to say whether it’s his photo? It’s not a freaking crime to have underwear shots of yourself in your possession. What else am I supposed to use as a screen saver?
Nemesis
Instead of muddling his way through countless interviews on Wednesday, Weiner should have simply demonstrated on a basic computer how to do what was done to him. Ive read fairly simple accounts of the process and it seems easy enough to bumper sticker the explanation for the media.
The focus is on the photo. Of course. The photo is salatious. Explaining the hack/falsification isnt sexy.
MattR
@John Cole: But can you guarantee that there are no pictures that include you wearing skivvies from your time in college and/or the military – perhaps a random group shot (or one with you in the background)?
Meg
If he didn’t send that picture to anyone, why does it even matter if it is him in the picture or not?
j low
@Adrienne: Zing!
Fred
John Galt Cole showing his true colors again. What is the root of all this John? Come clean for a change. Is there some libertarian candidate in his riding you have a boner over? Does Greenwald hate him and therefore loyal servants like you must as well?
jeff
@MattR:
With a hardon?
eemom
to save time and prevent confusion in future sex scandals, I propose that all male Congresspersons be dickprinted.
Church Lady
@Adrienne:
The photo was sent “@”.
shortstop
@JenJen: Some troll was along the other day to explain to us that the obsessed stalker was the only one of tens of thousands to get a screen shot because a) he’s an obsessed stalker, so you’ll have to forgive him obsessively stalking, and of course all of Weiner’s other followers had better stuff to do on a Friday night, or b) the obsessed stalker was the only one of Weiner’s tens of thousands of followers not conspiring to protect the congressman from the truth getting out.
ruemara
@dpcap:
And the target of the tweet says she A. never received it & B. believes it was a stalker who is not Anthony Wiener.
John Cole
@Fred: Fred, you kill me.
drew42
Oh. I thought everyone understood by now that Weiner didn’t do it, but loves fucking with the media.
Comrade Javamanphil
Although I generally abhor the corporate media’s obsession with non-stories since this one has sucked all the air out of coverage of the Grifter field trip through American history and the Mitt v3, the Rebootening, I’m actually inclined to urge them to keep at it until the story inevitably explodes in their face. (Two can play this game, @El Cid)
flukebucket
@Han’s Solo:
Nothing to brag about either.
dpcap
@ruemara: O RLY!? That’s very interesting indeed.
Of course, now I’m depressed because I doubt any media outlets will even bother to mention this.
John Cole
@MattR: There is a photo of me an my whole platoon in basic training giving the finger while in our military issue briefs, but no one cares. There is also a picture of me being kissed by a drag queen dressed up as Marilyn Monroe (the drag queen, not me). But in either case, if they were released, I would say “Yep. That’s me.” and that would be the end of the story.
MattR
@jeff: Assuming the picture was stolen, I think it is safe to assume it was also edited.
@John Cole: If somebody posted a picture of a schlong in miltary briefs and claimed it was you, would you just admit to it because you know that it might possibly be you? If it was me, I’d say I wasn’t sure one way or the other. (EDIT: More importantly, I would say this shows the ease of having a contradiction between your initial answer (no I don’t take underwear pics) and your clarification that there are actually underwear pics of you out there)
ruemara
@jeff:
We have strung up Republicans.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
But at least he wasn’t criticizing the President. Who wants to be this will get no play anywhere? It’s barely getting much notice in Ohio.
Of course, speaking of Ohio, King John I has lower popularity ratings than Lebron James, which takes some doing. Impressive, really.
Nate Dawg
@Fred: Yah Fred, Cole takes his marching orders from Greenwald. It is known.
Church Lady
According to a variety of news reports, both the FBI and the Capitol Police have said that they could have the ISP of the sender of the tweet in less than five minutes, if Weiner files a report with them. Why the heck doesn’t he do this? If it was me, I’d want to know who did it, and would want them to face the appropriate legal consequences.
JenJen
@shortstop: OH! Well, that clears it all up. ;-)
Fred
@John Cole: Figuratively speaking that is a green light to do more of the same. I am happy to oblige.
MattR
@Church Lady: Because Weiner is not a vindictive prick like you. He seems to think it was a prank and is treating it as such. That means that the perpetrator does not need to go to jail or have their life ruined just so the media can get a clean wrap up to an insignificant issue.
kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
He hates us back, BellaQ. Have you ever seen anyone more miserable in a job?
It’s like he’s dragging his ass to work every day, at great personal sacrifice and it’s YOUR FAULT, because he used to have a GREAT FUN LIFE :)
Fred
@Nate Dawg: He is most certainly a Greenwald fan. They way a naive self centered irrational screaming teenage girl is a fan of Bieber. She would do ANYTHING to get closer to him. Nothing he says or does could possibly be wrong.
Even if it means supporting a libertarian candidate who opposes child labour and civil rights laws.
People like that scare me. They strike me as the type you read about in headlines. The ones who nobody ever thought would go postal or be involved in a road rage incident.
There is something fundamentally wrong deep down.
shortstop
@JenJen: In more interesting news, how is our darling Stan?!
JenJen
@shortstop: He is WONDERFUL! He’s sleeping right now, curled up under my feet, and providing me with a lovely respite from his crazed puppy energy. :-)
In other news, if you’re tired of WeinerGate, check out Trump’s explanation for PizzaGate. As Booman says, we’ve reached peak stupid.
http://networkedblogs.com/iDSxj
Gin & Tonic
@Nemesis:
Why is the photograph salacious? It’s a guy in shorts.
Paul in KY
@John Cole: Thank you, sir.
shortstop
@JenJen: Not that we ever thought Trump was brilliant–not that we ever thought about it at all, really–but the third baseman and I have been asking ourselves how we managed not to know how abysmally fucking stupid he really is. Give Stan a smooch for me.
shortstop
@John Cole:
No reason not to post it here, then, for the edification of us, your sophomoric troops.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@BAM:
Closest I ever came to doing that was photographing my piss stream when I was trying to use up a roll of film back in the days before electronic cameras and the internet. No part of my anatomy was in the shot and it turned out so blurry you’d have a hard time figuring out what it was anyway.
I have no idea why any adult would take a photo like the alleged Weinergate one, and especially a politician or aspiring politician.
Sly
You can almost never go wrong with dick jokes.
D-Chance.
Learn this… never tweet your meat.
Nemesis
@Gin & Tonic:
You would agree that a pic of boner inside a pair of shorts is in fact more salatious than say, a graphicless verbal explanation of the clumsy prank, right?
Tsulagi
Guess it would be expected for teabaggers to grab hold of this and ride it for all it’s worth. And then some.
You would think they’d take a break for air, but no, suckers like Commander EE and the rest of his RS strike force warriors have been frenzied milking it way past the last drop.
Tom Betz
@Seth: And yfrog announced today that they have closed down the e-mail service that was used to frame Weiner.
Brachiator
First there was the SNL skit, My [email protected] in a Box. Now we have My [email protected] in a Tweet. Ridonckulous!
Mattminus
@dpcap:
I can’t imagine any situation under which this could be construed as sexual harassment.
Mattminus
@dpcap:
I can’t imagine any situation under which this could be construed as sexual harassment.
dpcap
@Tom Betz: One of the comments there is hillarious!
JonF
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/dan-wolfe-anthony-weiner-weinergate-632095
Getting weirder….
JenJen
@Tsulagi: Yep. Which leads me to another part of this “scandal” that I don’t understand: the only time sex scandals are salacious is when the politician in question is a sanctimonious hypocritical douchebag (see: Sanford, Mark; Gingrich, Newt; Tapper, Toe).
shortstop
@JonF: Everyone must click on this just to laugh hysterically at Weiner’s high-school photo.
Felinious Wench
@John Cole:
“Inflicting horror on an unsuspecting internet” should be a rotating tag line.
rikyrah
the title of this post cracks me up
Sentient Puddle
Sounds like it’s already been discussed, but here’s a link on how such a hack might work. Key part:
That sort of thing is ridiculously vulnerable to a dictionary attack. Jesus.
I would imagine yFrog would have the address of the sender logged, so it should be pretty easy to determine if this originated from Weiner.
Felinious Wench
@eemom:
FTW!!!!
jibeaux
@shortstop:
It was his twitter photo for a long while.
I tried my best not to pay attention to this nonsense, but finally I just had to click on the photo link. What I can’t figure out is this — there was no evidence as far as I could tell that he sent this picture to anyone, it seemed very credible to me that he didn’t, student said he didn’t send them, whatever. A big nothing. Then he says that he can’t be sure it’s not him in the picture.
Assuming he didn’t send anything to anybody but it’s also true that this is a picture of him that is on his computer or phone or in existence or whatever, which isn’t any of anyone’s damn business, why not just deny it and put the whole thing to bed? He’s allowed to have underwear pictures if he wants them or maybe his wife is in that .001% of the female population that likes that sort of thing, and how the hell is anybody going to prove it’s him, forensic sch-long analysis? It would kind of take a level of CSI: Pe-nis exceeding even the countertop inspectors’ abilities, I think.
Paul in KY
@shortstop: Made me feel a little better about mine (the HS photo, that is).
John Weiss
I apologize in advance, don’t mean no harm.
But this bid’ness about Weiner is just too fucking stupid to talk about. I’m outta here.
Sorry.
zach
The Mark Sanford thing was *so* much more interesting and mysterious and didn’t get a 10th of this coverage. Admittedly, Sanford isn’t a euphemism for dick.
OzoneR
@Lojasmo: I have to agree with Pancake, only because I live very close to his district. He was never popular there to begin with, had a narrower than usual reelection last year in very low turnout because Democrats in the district just hate him (they’re not very progressive)
He perceived as loud, divisive and egotistical. I think he was a shoo-in for Mayor until mid-late 2010, the the wheels came off. I don’t think he wins a Democratic primary now. Ray Kelly is the next mayor if he wants it, if not, its Bill Thompson or Christine Quinn.
A more popular, beloved Congressman could survive this, or a Republican, but Weiner’s problem is not the picture, it’s that he was already not well liked to begin with.
But a Republican won’t win his district, another (probably more moderate) Democrat will, though there is a GOP Councilman in Queens that I think could, but the district might not even be there anyway in 2012.
Valenciennes
This is easily the most depressing country that’s ever existed.
Judas Escargot
@El Cid:
Perhaps it’s actually a Russian penis. Or Chinese. Or Muslim.
Mr. President, we must not allow a Penis Gap.
JenJen
@Valenciennes: Clearly you never visited East Germany? :-)
JenJen
@OzoneR: Still, in as rough a year for Dems as 2010 was, I’d take that “narrower than usual” victory Rep. Weiner had. He won by 23,000+ votes, and 21.6 points.
Brachiator
@Valenciennes:
Oddly enough, the North Koreans agree with you.
Suffern ACE
@zach: Sanford was in a place very vew national reporters want to go. Weiner’s district is right near where most of them live.
No one would give a fig about Chris Christie’s helicopter trip either if he didn’t take the ride to the Bergen County suburbs.
Upper West
@OzoneR: Interesting. I like Wiener’s outspokeness, but as a bike-commuter, I did not like his comment about his plans as Mayor (“I’m gonna rip up all those fucking bike lanes”). So I’m happy if he stays a Congressman.
OzoneR
@Upper West:
I have a coworker of mine whos even more liberal than Glenn Greenwald and even he thinks Janette Sadik-Khan should be put in Rikers for being “anti-driver”
bike lanes are NOT popular in the least in the outer boroughs, except in the neighborhoods closest to Manhattan; Astoria, LIC, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, DUMBO, the Heights, Red Hook, Park Slope.
Bender
I’ll only say it once: I was right, as per usual. You guys were all wrong. Ignorant, naive, gullible, and wrong.
It’s like the sun coming up in the east this morning. What are the odds?
You told me the Tweet was an obvious, proven fake! You were wrong.
You said it was a hack! You were wrong.
You said it came from Breitbart, so it had to be fake! You were wrong.
You said Weiner couldn’t possibly be that stupid! You were wrong. Very, very wrong. Colossally wrong.
Here endeth the gloating.
taylormattd
@Nate Dawg:
Who cares whether it is easily answered?
It is a question that should not be asked. Unless, of course, you are Ken Starr or Brietbart apparently.
les
@El Cid:
oh god. got a smoke?
Bender
@meander:
That’s how bad Weiner handled this. Vitter copped to his fuck-up on Day One (and many, many big voices from the GOP did say he should resign). See the difference?
The story would’ve died on the vine three days ago. NO ONE in the MSM was covering it on Monday. Three right-bloggers (and a few hangers-on) were keeping the story afloat by going virtually 24/7 on Twitter and calling the MSM out for their double-standard silence. One of them, Ace Of Spades, almost quit covering the story because most right mega-blogs were hemming and hawing.
This even broke (for the conservative blogs, at least) on the Friday before a holiday weekend! It was perfect timing to diffuse a scandal! All Weiner had to do was admit to bad judgment or (the Democrats’ favorite) “a botched joke” and it would’ve been a one-day, page B-9 story. Ha ha. Weiner. I get it.
But he couldn’t do it. He thought he was so much smarter than you guys. He thought he could beat it with his customary stonewalling, change-the-subject bullshit. He thought he could call a network producer a “jackass” on national TV. He thought he could pay a “security firm” to “investigate” and give the media the answer he paid for. He just had to cover-up, and you know what they say about cover-ups.
Lojasmo
@drew42:
Everybody but john, unless he is trolling…which I suspect to be the case.
shortstop
@Bender:
I don’t know what’s going to come out of this. It seems almost certain that the photo is of Weiner; it’s far less certain that he sent it, and your victory dance is premature. But you know that. You’re taking it now because you’re pretty sure you’re not going to be able to take it later. Kind of like calling on an opponent to concede the election when too large a percentage of the votes are still out.
I get the old strategy, and I don’t fault you for trying it, but I will laugh my ass off at you for your hamhanded lack of skill at crafting convincing lies about the case of a U.S. senator who actually committed a sex-related CRIME and refused to own up:
Right. By hiding in his house and waiting days to first address it, then refusing to admit in his press conference exactly what it was that he had done (referring to it as “it” throughout). In fact, he’s never “copped to it.” Ever. Not then, not now.
Absolutely; the College Republicans at the University of New Orleans are indisputably “big voices.” Who else? The members of the GOP Congressional caucus, all of whom refused to give public statements on Vitter but who handed him a standing ovation when he returned? The couple of people who bravely called for his resignation the minute that Jindal was safely in the governor’s office? Profiles in courage!
Chris Andersen
Really, because every time I hear him talk about it I laugh because he is obviously having a good time poking fun at the media’s obsession with this story.
Original Lee
My favorite so far is one of his stammering responses to a question about the provenance of the photo: “I don’t recall…its…its….its not familiar to me.”
Lojasmo
@Bender:
Wrong about being right = dividing by zero. You win negative three internetz.
Bender
@JonF:
What’s to cover? “I cannot answer the questions that I do not have the answers to. I am not sure whether or not this letter will alleviate any future harassment. I also do not have a clear understanding as to how or why exactly I am involved in this fiasco.”
She doesn’t say anything except “leave me alone,” which is the right thing for her to say. She should know the reason she’s involved, though — Weiner.
We only learn a couple things: One, even for a J-school student, she’s a bad writer (“When I checked one of the posts that I had been tagged in I saw that it was a picture that had supposedly been tweeted to me by Congressman Anthony Weiner.” Ouch.).
Two, Ms. Cordova’s definition of “harassment” (Tweeting about her is harassment, sending a picture of your genitals to her is not) is pretty, ummmm, interesting.
Bender
@shortstop:
This, my friend, is whistling in the dark.
I call bullshit. July 10th, 2007 he was named on the client list. July 10th, 2007 he admitted he had done it.
You might be thinking about Barney Frank, who solicited male prossies and let one run a prossie ring out of his home. He’s the one who never copped to it.
I was thinking more of Hannity and Limbaugh, but whatever.
WaterGirl
@El Cid: Nicely done!
Felinious Wench
@Lojasmo:
It’s confusion about the original disagreement. I said the account was probably hacked, because it’s not difficult to hack Twitter. What we’re seeing now points to, yes, the account was either hacked, or someone mocked up a fake Twitter page with the image. Rep. Weiner did not post this picture of himself on Twitter, either through a private message or through a public message. It was not a mistake. He didn’t do it.
Now, whether this picture was actually of him, etc., was not in scope of the conversation. If Bender wants to go down that path, fine. But that’s a different thread than whether or not the account was hacked or the picture faked.
Carry on.
lou
I still can’t believe that anyone buys that “boyfriend” bullshite. You really date yourself as an internet dino-saur when you do and I speak as a 50 yo. I have boyfriends, too. Stephen Colbert, Alexander Skarsgard, Tom Colicchio and Viggo Mortensen and often joke with friends on Facebook about it. I don’t tweet about them because my twitter account is a professional one.
My husband already knows and understands that I will run away with him as soon as Stephen asks.
Felinious Wench
@Seth:
I will post this again, Seth, thanks. It’s a partisan site, but the technical explanation is sound.
Edit: Link fail, fixed
Joseph Nobles
@Chris Andersen: I hope you’re right. If this turns out to be an ex-girlfriend (or an acquaintance of an ex) punking him hard, he’s going to wind up smelling like roses.
Step2
Splashing this can of worms across the headlines only pricks the interest of obsessive nuts while doing nothing to fill the need for hard hitting expose. Democrats can look forward to the Fox news unit getting a rise out of it, stalking the suspects and pumping the story over and over until their viewers’ eyes glaze over. Meanwhile, serious news appendages will ignore this low hanging fruit until it peters out and instead keep drilling into stories about the Koch brothers and teabaggers.
So many euphemisms, so little time.
Sentient Puddle
@Felinious Wench:
Just to be clear, no, this would not be a Twitter hack. It’s more a really basic exploit in yFrog that didn’t take much effort to use.
I feel like this might sound like splitting hairs, but I still see it as a pretty significant difference.
Felinious Wench
@Sentient Puddle:
It is. I’ve been using the term hacked for laypeople who don’t want to get a headache. :)
When people are slamming out code…you know the drill. This shit ALWAYS happens. And everyone is slamming out code in social media right now. There hasn’t been time for it to settle down and the code refactored/architected in the later releases. So…easy vulnerabilities.
opal
@Bender:
All we know for certain is that the conservative blogosphere spent an entire holiday weekend staring at some guy’s dick instead of honoring our troops.
If Reagan was alive today, he’d be clawing in panicked horror at the lid of his coffin.
Nate Dawg
@opal: THIS!
@Bender:
You’re a douche. Your list conveniently left out the major development in Weinergate–the yfrog security hole–which makes the likelihood that Weiner sent out the tweet plummet. Great work there, chief.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Judas Escargot:
the whistle-stopper could come from anywhere in the world, for sure,as such, it was smuggled in a diplomatic pouch, so i would root out the consulate generals.
shortstop
@Bender:
He “admitted” he’d done what? An unnamed “sin” which he carefully did not connect in either direct wording or implication to the contents of the accusation. He did not then, and he has not ever, admitted that he has been a customer of prostitutes. Ever.
Do you think he might get around to it when the statute of limitations on his crime runs out? Nope, me neither.
Hilarious, but not really surprising, that you leave all elected GOP politicians out of your list of “big GOP voices” and go for the powers that lead you. Even then, though, you fall flat: Limbaugh downplayed and dismissed the crime for ages, calling it simple adultery. I don’t know whether he finally got around to calling for Vitter’s resignation, but if he did it was loooong after the fact — maybe in his first show after the Jindal inauguration?
Weak.