That’s where Weinergate is headed, right? Some Weiner staffer is going to take the fall, the main question is “When?”
Here’s why I think that’s where this is headed. On Friday night Rep. Anthony Weiner, New York Democrat, deletes the lewd tweet within minutes of it happening — and after about 3.5 hours of public silence — and declares that he has been “hacked.” Thiry-six hours later the recipient of the offending tweet puts out a statement refuting a bevy of accusations no one had actually made, and on Sunday Weiner (through his staff) calls the tweet a “prank” but brushes off questions regarding whether there has been any contact between Weiner and the woman. Thirty-six hours is plenty of time for Weiner and the tweet recipient to get their stories aligned via direct messages or some other means, should they have any reason or need to do that. And then there’s this, from Politico’s story Sunday:
Weiner’s office did not answer specific questions about the photograph, whether he has contacted authorities or the Seattle woman who received the photograph. He has said that his Facebook was hacked and if his Twitter had the same password, that too could be vulnerable.
Weiner isn’t even saying that his twitter account was hacked anymore. He is only suggesting that it could have been hacked. Well, duh. That’s true of every single twitter account on earth. This is a pretty significant shift from Friday, when Weiner claimed he’d been hacked and even saluted “Mr. Moriarty” for getting one over on him. That little salute also made Weiner the most incurious Sherlock Holmes ever, by the way: There is no active police investigation of the alleged hacking.
Even better for Rep Weiner is when the papers ignore the story entirely. Kinda like they did with John Edwards.
Yup. Mickey Kaus has made that point. I have to say, even Fox’s coverage this morning was brief and stayed pretty far from the details.
I have to disagree with Byron York on this. No one will get fired. Weiner can see that the genocidal maniacs who comprise the left-wing blogosphere and media are pushing the meme that this is the dirty work of Andrew Breitbart and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (TM). Weiner knows better than to get between the Nazgûl and its prey.
Plus, Weiner has a large enough ego (larger than, ah, other portions of his anatomy) to believe that he can run the tables on this, and get conservatives blamed besides. It’s not an unfounded belief. Consider the fact that Democrats can commit murder (Kennedy), rape (William Jefferson Clinton), tax evasion (most of Obama’s cabinet), racist judicial rulings (Sonia Sotomayor),and corruption (the rest) with almost no penalty whatsoever.
why hasn’t Drudge posted anything about this?
Ace from Ace of Spades HQ has done fine and very funny work on this story.
As one of the fine commenters at Ace of Spades HQ said the other day:
We’ve traced the hack! And the hack is coming from… INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!
So how about a poll:
Weiner appears on his good friend Jon Stewart’s show tonight or this week to pimp his story
The Daily show has only crickets chirping in regards to this story
Jon Stewart abandons Weiner and mines the comedy gold
A Weiner poll. That just might happen…
There is no likely iteration of this story that involves either:
-John Stewart deliberately humiliating a sitting Democrat US Congressman on his program, or
-Weiner vountariliy opening himself up to hardline questioning about what actually happened.
EG: If you didn’t post that picture, then who do you think did? What do you mean, “you have no idea who did it”? You’re a Congressman, your personal communication accounts were compromised, and you don’t care who did it? Don’t you think you owe it to the public and your constituents to find out? Why don’t you want an investigation here? Is it true that the individual that was supposed to receive this “tweet” sent you one referring to you as her “boyfriend”? Etc, etc.
Weiner has made it plain that he’s following rule #1 of being in a hole (ie stop digging); he’s not going to say anything else about this incident ever again if he can damn well help it. That’s why he’s lawyered up, and that’s why he will resist any and all attempts at an external investigation.
For RC Dean, allegations that Breitbart was responsible for this incident are solely coming from factually and intellectually challenged bloggers on the lunatic left, not from Weiner himself. Weiner wouldn’t DARE call out Breitbart on this, and for reasons that I think are plainly obvious.
Personally, I’m wondering if there is any mechanism to spark a House Congressional investigation here. *IF* we are to take Weiner at his word, that his personal media accounts have been “hacked”, then that’s a criminal offense against a sitting member of Congress, and it has national security implications. For example, have Weiner’s OTHER communications been compromised? Who was trying to humiliate him, and why?
If Weiner is so blase about is own personal communication security, that he honestly doesn’t care who hacked (now “pranked”) him, then how can he be trusted to hold a national security clearance?
If Breitbart is being accused of hacking him some Weiner, then he has a golden opportunity to file a libel suit, and get some court-ordered discovery of all the relevant tech information.
If he had any creativity at all, he would have instantly screamed, “Hey! That’s Brett Favre’s penis!”
Thrown under the Weinermobile! What a way to go…
Well, Beulah BalBricker laid out the plan to ferret out the owner of a suspected talliwhacker in Porky’s. Seems like a plan to me. There are clips of the scene on Youtube if anyone is rusty on the details. I guess we don’t need a sketch artist.
Maybe a reward anyone who has seen or has information about that Prick.
The bigger story for me is the manner in which the lapdog media handles these stories. If it’s a Republican, it gets blown up into a scandal of epic proportions.
If it’s a Democrat, it gets buried, covered up, distorted, and the truth is butchered.
Don’t get me wrong…if this guy is prowling around high school girls and college co-eds, looking for soft porn shot to exchange, that is high evidence of low character.
The evidence points strongly to a dalliance, not a prank. If this girl was sending him risque’ photos to her “boyfriend” (not an uncommon “playful flirting” gesture) and he returned one in kind, that situation would make perfect sense.
It does not make sense that someone’s entire communication system was “hacked” all at the exact same moment in time, that it was “discovered” within a matter of minutes and rectified, that this ONE girl was the only one to be sent the photo, that she issues a non-denial, that HE …with his famous temper…considers this a mere “prank”.
This is a man, based upon his known propensity to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, would NOT likely react by sloughing off an invasion of this magnitude, a potentially reputation and marriage killing event…and THIS guy…goes into bunker mentality, lawyers up, shuts down communications, ….do we really believe THAT would be his “natural” reaction?
Not based on anything I have ever witnessed where he has been involved. Again, anything is “possible”.
But if he believed that someone was potentially destroying his marriage, his career, his reputation…AND he believed he had been “hacked”…if he truly believed his own story…where is the rage?
In fact, if he believed his own story…I would bet heavily…that blaming REPUBLICANS would have been the first words out of his mouth.
Where is the “evidence” of a “prank”? If he HAS “evidence” of a prank, what is it? Why need a lawyer to disclose it? Why wait the Chappaquiddick three days to come forward?
This doesn’t pass the smell test. And, the lapdog media won’t report on it until the story is capable of being given the proper coverup.
Even the kos kids dont believe his story…
http://www.dailykos.com/poll/1426005/vote
The hacking story is obviously bogus, since if it was true, Weiner would be all over the FBI to find the identity of the hacker, and would publically be blaming repubs until the FBI found the real culprit. Since he isn’t himself pointing any fingers, it is because he knows already and therefore can’t without lying. He can let his minions on the left (blogs and MSM) blame repub bloggers, since he has plausable deniability of any of their allegations.
Since Weiner probably knows that any investigation would probably prove the tweet originated on his own computer, he is not demanding any investigation. Agree that the prank story allows him to claim some staffer originated the tweet on his computer, with his id, allowing him to blame somebody other than himself, if the story continues to demand facts, and the identity of the tweeting computer comes out publically.
As for those who say, why should this story even matter, I have two replies.:
1. It would definitely matter to the left and MSM if it was a repub. And in past history the right is not willing to ignore moral failings like this in their leaders. Only leftist leaders can get away with moral failings like this.
2. Weiner continues to lie. If he had told the truth right away, it would have matter much less to me. Once again the coverup is much worse than the offense.
Isn’t he from a safe district, one that will re-elect him regardless of what he does as long as he remains a Democrat? He should have simply stated that he made a mistake and moved on. The cover-up usually is more damaging than the original offense.