28 May 2011
CAJ note: Though this story about Rep. Anthony Weiner has been all over Twitter we weren’t going to blog it. At first, it seemed silly and insignificant. Then we began to read more. The brilliant R.S. McCain has it all, so we’ll turn you over to him.
Around here bets are on, though, that the “gray underwear photograph” actually belongs to Brett Favre rather than the Congressman.
Congressman Weiner's Twitter avatar, his high school photograph
Weiner’s Wiener?
UPDATE: Who Is ‘Gennette Nicole’?
UPDATE: Questions Piling Up
Photo via GatewayPundit "@GennetteNicole Seattleite. Type A. Undergrad Journalism Student. Progressive. Humanitarian in the Making."
R. S. McCain
The Other McCain
5/28/2011
New York Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner allegedly sent an alleged photo of his alleged penis to an alleged woman via Twitter.
The photo shows a man in gray undershorts with a bulging erection. Weiner is claiming he was the victim of Internet hackers, and I think we should believe him.
Because his penis is probably much smaller than that.
Via Memeorandum, with blog commentary by Patterico’s Pontifications, The Jawa Report, Sister Toldjah, No Sheeples Here, Doug Ross, Weasel Zippers and American Power.
UPDATE: Velvet Hammer at Ironic Surrealism examines “Gennette Nicole,” the self-described “progressive” journalism student in Seattle to whom Weiner allegedly sent the photo, and who had previously described the married congressman as her “boyfriend.” Her Twitter account has now disappeared down the memory hole…
…UPDATE III: Jesse LaGreca at Daily Kos is trying to turn this into a story about Andrew Breitbart, which is ridiculous. We seem to have actual facts here, facts which require some plausible explanation.
Very simple questions: Was Rep. Weiner exchanging online messages with Ms. Cordova? If so, why? If this is all just a misunderstanding — if Rep. Weiner was the victim of hackers — why was Ms. Cordova the recipient of that message? Why would a hacker randomly select a student journalist in Washington State to send that to?
The congressman’s office can either answer those questions — and answer them PDQ — or else wait until every political reporter on the West Coast is camped out in front of Ms. Cordova’s house.
UPDATE IV: I just got off the phone with Andrew Breitbart, who denies any insinuation of wrongdoing on his part in reporting the story now known by the Twitter hashtag #WeinerGate.
Frances Martel at Mediaite writes that the story is “a reminder that Andrew Breitbart’s editors and writers do not aim to abide by accepted journalistic standards.” Exactly how the hell “accepted journalistic standards” should be applied to a congressman (apparently) Tweeting a picture of his penis to a college student, I’m not sure…
Read the entire article at The Other McCain.
Read also, DaTechGuy’s blog, Anthony Weiner and How to be a Reporter.
Update: Verum Serum says, “Something a bit strange is going on here…”
…Ace sums up the problem with Weiner’s hacking excuse:
for reasons I don’t get, he previously posted a helpful “that’s about 5:45 in Seattle” tweet when discussing an upcoming appearance on Maddow. [The 21 year old woman who got the message lives near Seattle.]
I also assume that, after immediately wrestling control of these accounts from the mischievous malefactors, he deleted the offensive material, rather than preserving the evidence for the police, and the upcoming prosecution of the hackers, who he must surely wish to face the full consequences of law; I assume he did so just because he was so shocked that he wasn’t thinking clearly, and in fact was so stunned by this invasion of his boner zone of privacy that he coincidentally began acting like a man caught doing something wrong.
Only, according to Politico, his staff isn’t saying if they’ve called in the FBI. And it does seem odd that he was in his account and tweeting just moments before and after this mysterious hacking occurred…
Oh, and John has found another photo.
Update 2: Day 2 and McCain is still gathering links from around the web. He says MSM are beginning to pick up on the story, though are dismissive of it as much to do about nothing. I guess they hadn’t heard of the recent special election in NY-26, which was necessitated by the GOP pushing out one of their own for appearing shirtless on Craigslist.
Here’s the problem: the Congressman says his account was hacked. That means someone has committed at least two crimes: hacking a private account, and impersonating a federal official. Shouldn’t the police and the FBI be called in?
Now, however, there also appears to be a school girl and a stripper in the mix. McCain expects, and we agree, the British newspapers will not worry about party affiliation in their reportage. This kind of story is right up their street.
Update 3: At American Power, Peter Ingemi on #Weinergate, in which DaTechguy explains what Twitter is all about and how those of us who use it can reasonably assume Weiner’s account wasn’t hacked.
At RedState, #Weinergate update: Coed being scrubbed from Google
Update 4: From DaTechguy again:
Lee Stranahan writes a post that both Ace of Spades and I wish we had written:
If ‘benefit of the doubt’ isn’t good enough for the person you’re married to, then it’s not good enough for the practice of journalism. And by not acting as curious as a spouse – usually because of ideological agreement with the subject of inquiry – reporters aren’t doing their jobs.
Let’s apply this to Anthony Weiner…
Go read the rest, Lee deserves the hits for that one.
Which reminded us of this:
Update 5: @GingerLee now makes her appearance at iOwnTheWorld. It’s worthwhile following the link. For those of you who don’t use Twitter, “DM” means “direct message” which is a private message on Twitter. It is seen only by the sender and the recipient.
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