Ben Smith of the Politico weighs in on WeinerGate:

Part of Weiner’s mystifying performance, allies say, comes from the fact that he seems to be his own closest adviser. “It’s never a good idea to be your own lawyer,” said a pained Weiner friend.

Weiner’s allies say the press-savvy former spokesman for New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has been masterminding his own defense, though he’s in email and telephone touch with a wide circle of former aides and a smaller political team that shaped his 2005 bid for mayor of New York and had been expected to advise on a 2013 campaign, including consultants Jim Margolis and Tom Freedman and pollster Joel Benenson.

Advertisement

That go-it-alone approach has satisfied no one and left a general feeling of bewilderment among those watching Weiner try to argue that he was the victim of an Internet prank.

“If in fact it was just a hacking, then the performance is mystifying,” said Eric Dezenhall, who heads a Washington crisis management firm.

Lanny Davis, a veteran of Clinton White House scandals who often advises clients to dump their bad news fast and in full, said Weiner should embrace that strategy. Not to do that is “simply to compound the crisis — to give it legs, to give it more energy,” he said.

Weiner’s predicament has already dealt a blow to his political prospects. Long seen as a glib, punchy and perhaps slightly adolescent spinoff of the heavyweight Schumer, he had acquired a level of public seriousness as a leading spokesman for the left. And his marriage last summer to glamorous, trusted Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had the feel of the merger of the two great houses of Clinton and Schumer.

Given that Smith is a self-admitted member of the leftwing JournoList, which another member described as President Obama’s “non-official campaign” staff in 2008, he’s not being ironic in that last sentence, is he?

As far as what Weiner himself is saying (to the Politico, which presumably at the start of this, would have been happy to do damage control for any member (ahem) of “the two great houses of Clinton and Schumer,” here’s the obligatory Ace link:

There’s not getting around this. Weiner’s spinner calls the penis picture “the bad fact.”

No, the penis picture is the funny fact.

The fact that the picture was sent to a 21 year old coed is the alarming fact.

Not calling the police? That’s the bad fact.

I admire the effort to turn the picture into the “bad fact.” But here’s the actual fact: It’s people who are not serious about hanging you who are still looking at that picture. People like TV Clown Jon Stewart, whom naive people are calling “brave” for simply acknowledging that yes, a funny picture of a penis exists, ha-ha-ha, hee-hee-hee.

Oh my garsh! Jon Stewart is really telling the truth on this!

Oh? About what? That penises are funny and have been since we were three years old? Well, thanks for the insight on that, Jon. You keep on being edgy and brave.

No, people who are serious about hanging you aren’t looking at your picture. They’re looking at your behavior.

And your behavior is of a guilty man.

Read the whole thing.