Well, you can’t expect them to blame Breitbart. He’s a Lovable Scamp with a Nose for News and a knack for Bringing in the Ratings! IOW: IOKIYAR again.

why on earth would anyone acept a claim that a NY congressman was having an affiar with a 21-year old student from Seattle without at least some evidence that the two had been on the same side of the continent at the same time?

The excuse was that they were reporting the “questions”, not so much the answers.  Well,  I think I have “questions” about how much Breitbart’s brain has been eroded by his untreated syphilis.  Hey, just asking!

Well if Weiner would just use the NYT exclusively for all his communication, there wouldn’t be this problem!

I mean, after all, if you insist of talking and mingling with the unwashed masses, you should expect their stink to rub off on you!

Honestly, how can Weiner expect to be invited to the cocktail wienie circuit if he insists on mixing in with the hoi polloi?

One of my best friends online has been extensively, horrifically harassed by some asshole.  Most lately, he’s taken to tweeting at everyone who mentions her, piling on fat-shaming, slut-shaming abuse, making it so she can’t even have a conversation over twitter with anyone whose account isn’t privacy-blocked without exposing them to this shit.

It sickens me that anyone has the gall to blame the victim of abuse like this.  It’s not Weiner’s fault some guy out there is a flaming asshole.  It’s the flaming asshole’s fault.  JFC.

I am so sick of this “We’re just asking questions” b-s from the media that I could explode. If you’re so interested in asking questions then ask some questions BEFORE you run a story! Two easy questions like:

Why should we accept information from a man notorious for editing/manipulating video footage to say what he wants it to say?
Can we get a copy of Weiner’s schedule to see when he’s been to Seattle? Maybe he is having an affair, so let’s check a few sources to try and verify if it’s true.

Another question they could ask is, “Is this some straight b-s that we shouldn’t even bother with?” Or upon looking into the “story” they might have noticed a pattern of women being harassed online and wrote about that instead. I don’t even have a twitter account due to the amount of stalking, harassment and just shit that several of my friends have had to take from guys they had the nerve to stop dating.

I think Birtherism is partly “revenge” for Democratic doubts about the outcome of the 2000 election, and similarly Weinergate is revenge for Chris Lee—notice how soon after the Tea Party lost NY-26 it happened. So why did they invent something out of whole cloth rather than find a Democrat who actually had done something disreputable? Because to them there’s no difference between a scandal with substance and one without, because substance is irrelevant. So the fact that Chris Lee actually did it is besides the point; putting it in the newspapers is a partisan attack, so a similar partisan attack against a Democrat is perfectly fair.

And, um, the relevance to the subject at hand is that harassment is in our social-media age just another weapon in the arsenal of people who don’t have reality on their side.

Why should we accept information from a man notorious for editing/manipulating video footage to say what he wants it to say?

Because Breitbart says the things that the Villagers believe are true. Evil Black People Stealing Votes? Breitbart will say it. Evil Black People Are All Racist Against White Farmers? Breitbart will say it. Evil Democrats Have Sex Scandals Just Like All the Republicans But Worse Because It’s On Twitter? Breitbart will say it.

The Village loves Breitbart, and they’ll never, ever let him go.

“If you’re so interested in asking questions then ask some questions BEFORE you run a story!”

...because that takes all the fun out of it.  You might find out something you don’t want to know.

“Two easy questions like:
Why should we accept information from a man notorious for editing/manipulating video footage to say what he wants it to say?”

This one is easy:  The “news” is just another form of entertainment.  The more interesting/scandalous/horrific it is, the better.  More Eyeballs = More Profit.

“Newsworthy”?  What the hell is that?  Much better to have celebrity squabbles (or a good murder, if you can find one), lots of tits-n-ass, implications of sexual impropriety (especially involving Democrats - it’s too frequent among Republicans to be interesting anymore), unwed pregnancies, scandalous affairs, etc.  If you can’t find anything you can blow-up into an “incident”, then just invent one.

Breitbart is a sleazy, panty-sniffing, scandal-creating, liar, for whom there are no depths to which he’d be unwilling to sink if he could make a Democrat look bad.  In other words, he delivers exactly what the modern media want.

“Can we get a copy of Weiner’s schedule to see when he’s been to Seattle? Maybe he is having an affair, so let’s check a few sources to try and verify if it’s true.”

What’s the point?  It’s not like reality has anything to do with these things.  Reality is just too boring.  And since when does truth have any bearing on the “newsworthiness” of a story?...

Absolutely, Hershele.  It was clear from the history of this that was compiled on Daily Kos that Weiner became a target because he’s probably the most famous representative from New York. They lose a congressman to an inappropriate picture sent over social networks, so our side has to lose one, too, right?

Absolutely, Hershele.  It was clear from the history of this that was compiled on Daily Kos that Weiner became a target because he’s probably the most famous representative from New York. They lose a congressman to an inappropriate picture sent over social networks, so our side has to lose one, too, right?

@4: Exactly. The old-guard media (in which NYT is obviously a major player) regards Twitter as not being serious enough for a Congressperson to engage in. And no doubt a large part of that is because it puts those Congresspeople in direct contact with their constituents. When everyone knows the proper way for constituents to hear from their Congresspeople is through channels like the New York Times!

@6: The “just asking questions” form of “journalism” has become ubiquitous in American media outlets. In my opinion it stems partly from laziness - you don’t actually have to verify or fact-check a story anymore. If some random boob out there has an unfounded opinion, that right there can be a story! Which random boob’s opinion is newsworthy, of course, is based on what will get the most ratings.

They lose a congressman to an inappropriate picture sent over social networks, so our side has to lose one, too, right?

It’s kind of amusing how desperately Republicans need to believe that Democrats are just as bad with the sex scandals. Hence the fact that they’re still cracking jokes about Bill Clinton, 13 years after the scandal. In those thirteen years, there have been more Republican sex scandals than I could possibly remember. But Bill Clinton proves that it’s those immoral Democrats who are the perverts!

(In fairness, there have been a few more Democratic sex scandals in those 13 years as well, but I’m still amazed at how, a week after whatever the latest Republican sex scandal is, Republicans online can be seen cracking “haw haw Democrats do nothing but have sex in office!” jokes and genuinely don’t see the irony.)

There is also the fact that fact checking and follow up require personnel to do the fact checking and follow up.  Personnel have to be paid.  Ergo, fact checking and follow up are bad for the bottom line.  Quality goes down?  So what, what are people going to do?  Follow the news ontwitter? 
Um, actually, yes, some are.  Others just go to foreign sources (BBC, Straights Times, etc) or direct sources (Congressional Record, Census Bureau, etc).

I don’t like that he’s calling it a “Prank” though.  Hacking is against the law.  The guy who hacked Palin’s email did time for it.  I’m a bit concerned about Weiner’s reaction today.  If by some crazy chance he actually did this?  that’s going to give that crawling, lying, racist, sexist, psychopath, Breibert, cred.  I would have expected him to react a bit more seriously than calling it a “prank” and getting a lawyer.  I would have expected him to call it a crime, and report it to the proper authority, whether that be Congress, or the FBI, or both.  I’m a bit uneasy after reading today’s reaction from him.  This better not have happened.

Scott: If anything I’d say the Villagers are Fortean—they just don’t care what’s true or not as long as it pays the bills doesn’t get them fired. Breitbart’s pure wingnut welfare though—his job is secure as long as there’s a ready-made audience of low-information conservative mouthbreathers ready to believe anything bad about anyone to the left of Henry Kissinger.

Weiner did get a lawyer and is looking into appropriate responses.

gretchen:

My concern here is that even with a lawyer, there’s a good chance his career is over at the next election. Breitbart is very aware of the saying about truth getting its boots on, and I think that’s the heart of his MO (as taught to James O’Keefe and Lila Rose). The only way Weiner wins this one is if he’s doing a sufficiently good job that his constituency couldn’t care less, or if people just forget. The right-wing noise machine has already convicted him, and the MSM stenography pool isn’t going to come to his aid.

Truthfully? I think the damage is already done and Weiner’s going to have to fight like hell to keep his job. Don’t forget, the accusations against Bill Clinton from people like Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick would have put him in jail for a long time if Ken Starr had been able to pin them on him (and he was certainly motivated to do so). The fact that there was no evidence that those incidents actually happened doesn’t change the fact that there are still people who think Bill Clinton was a rapist as opposed to a mere philanderer.

Brian, I disagree.  This isn’t a he said, she said.  If his account was hacked, there’s a record.  And an IP.

That’s why the Capital police and FBI should have been called.  This isn’t a “prank”.  This was an illegal hack, and an attempted political hit job.  Calling it a prank is alarming to me, I don’t like it, it raised a red flag.  However, anything with Breibart’s fingerprints on it, is presumed to be a lie and hatchet job by any sentinent being.

So I now wait to hear what this lawyer that Weiner obtained, does next.  Because all we know is that his office stated they have retained a lawyer. We don’t know who that lawyer is, or whether he or she is pursuing criminal charges.  And they had better be pursuing criminal charges, or this thing starts to stink to high heaven.

Except it doesn’t look like his account was hacked. The picture is forged and manually retweeted.  No one has a screen grab of it originating fromWeiner’s account, and the original retweet comes from a guy who had been harassing the woman and hated Weiner and who posited two weeks ago that this would happen.

It’s fraud, not hacking.

“That’s why the Capital police and FBI should have been called.  This isn’t a “prank”.”

It is (and also libel and defamation) if what happened wasn’t an actual hack but the manual retweet of a photoshopped screenshot.  If a screenshot of your account posting bogus things that you didn’t post is legit, it’s hacking and, in most states, a crime.  If a screenshot of your account posting bogus things that you didn’t post is photoshopped, it’s the internet.  Proving which one happened tends to take a day or two unless the shopjob was really clumsy, during which the only precise thing you, the victim, can say is “I didn’t post that.”

Apparently, it wasn’t even a hack though. The guy made a fake (old-school “RT”) “Retweet” from Rep. Weiner, a common prank.

Someone though it was legit (or at least thought that they could convince others that it was legit) and publicized it. Cue Right-Wing attack dogs…

At some point, a fake screen-shoot was going around, but that’s been debunked.

But over all, it seems like the offending Tweet was never posted to his account at all!

This what I get for getting sidetracked (by Twitter!) and then not refreshing before I post…

Daisy:

This isn’t about what it was. This is about what the spin machine lets the people it’s trying to reach believe it was. Michael Mann and others involved in Climate"Gate” were thoroughly vindicated, but that didn’t stop the commentariat from screaming “whitewash”. Global warming denial hasn’t gone away just because they’ve been proved utterly wrong both scientifically and legally; the deniers have just doubled down, the way they did on ACORN, and the way they almost certainly will on this.

I didn’t know that it had been definitely found that it was a retweet, and not something that ever appeared in his stream.  So if that’s the case, then I will be very relieved.  (I use twitter, and I understand how easy a fake retweet would be) Not because I give a crap if he did that (assuming a consensual relationship/flirtation), but because it would give Breibart cred, and that’s the last thing the left needs happening.  I really hope you guys are right about that.

It’s my guess that Weiner’s knee-jerk reflex is laugh off weiner jokes, and that’s part of what motivated him to say it was a prank.  The guy’s only had his whole life to learn to shrug off that stuff.  It seemed to me like an off-the-cuff dismissal in that vein.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/rep-anthony-weiner-d-ny-refuses-to-answer-questions-on-twitter-hack.php?ref=fpblg

Read that, but imagine it coming from a Republican Congressperson.

Doesn’t sound good, does it?

So you’re glad Weiner got a lawyer, want the lawyer to press charges, the lawyer’s likely advice was not to answer questions until they figure out what the hell to do, and now you think it’s fishy that Weiner’s not answering questions?  Make up your mind exactly what you’re upset with here.

Daisy @28: Idunno, I think there’s a big difference between “I’m not going to answer that question” and “I’ve already answered that question several times and I’m done feeding the wolves, so shut the fuck up and go do your fucking homework if you want to know.” The first is hiding something; the second can easily be verified if you’re literate.

Of course, I am literate, but I guess a lot of Americans are not, so perhaps the clearly giant gaping difference between the two types of statements is only apparent to me because I am a horrible East Coast liberal and not a real American at all. Also probably overthinking things.

Frankly, I am neither concerned for Weiner’s job nor concerned that he is not sufficiently seriously angry about this. He represents Queens. New Yorkers are the only people he needs to worry about voting for him. New Yorkers generally understand humor and sarcasm better than your average deliberately humorless rethuglican/media hack, and if they didn’t, Weiner would never have gotten elected the first time around.

I also don’t think getting publicly Seriously Angry would do him a lick of good, either. Republicans can be Serious and Righteously Pissed Off, because they are Republicans. As Amanda mentioned, Democrats are coded as feminine, so angry Democrats are just Humorless And Looking For Things To Get Offended About. Whatever other shit the right wing spin machine comes up with, nobody can say Rep. Weiner is humorless. And if he appeared to get very serious business angry, that would also be Proof That It Is All True And He Is Mad At Getting Found Out (particularly because, when Anthony Weiner is mad, he expresses it by making jokes, so if he didn’t make jokes I would think something was up too). I think treating the whole business as fuckin’ ridiculous is the best move he could make, because it is fuckin’ ridiculous. And publicly treating it as such doesn’t preclude prosecuting the douchebag behind it.

To Ruby (and anyone else subscribing to this notion):

“It seems like the offending tweet was never posted to his account at all!”

As nice as it would be if that was true, it’s not. In fact, it’s completely and utterly false. The tweet was unquestionably sent from Weiner’s account. He has never even tried to deny that. Don’t you think if it wasn’t true, he’d be screaming it from the hills?

Anyone floating this silly theory is being duped by the same people who invented the claim of Andrew Breitbart using a “doctored” image. As there always are in these situations, people will try grasping onto any flimsy straw they can. Don’t get pulled into their nonsense.

You can even verify for yourself that the tweet was posted by Weiner’s account because there is a site called TweetCongress.org that keeps an archive of all congressional tweets. The tweet in question came from Weiner’s account and it is visible on that site for all to see. You can look it up yourself directly at TweetCongres, or more simply, just google “weiner” and “tweet congress” to find other sites that have already done so.

Let’s put our common sense caps on for a moment and realize that if Weiner’s account had not tweeted the image, there would be no story, other than RW blogs trying to fan a flame that isn’t burning. But it did come from his account, which is why there’s a story.

And combined with the terrible way he’s handling this, the story is rapidly becoming an even bigger one.

No, he apparently has not had sex with the young woman.

His behaviour is utterly, clearly, the grooming behaviour of a paedophile.

Yeah, sure, I know she’s over 18. He is still an evil old pervert and he’s grooming her.

Hello, I would like to challenge your take on this.

1) “Andrew Breitbart started galumping about how Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York was supposedly having an affair with an arbitrarily chosen college student in Seattle…”. Please provide a reference where Breitbart or one of his sites alleged an affair, or any in person contact between Rep Weiner and the tweet recipient.

2) Weiner and his spokespeople have refused to answer two questions—Why did Rep Weiner tweet about the time in Seattle (where the tweet recipient is located) before the alleged incident? Why was Rep Weiner following the tweet recipient (one of less than 100 people he followed)? This is circumstantial evidence, but is consistent with Rep Weiner accidentally sending a public message to her which was meant to be private, especially in the absence of any other explanation from Rep Weiner.

Where did this puddle of troll spit… oh.

Sorry about the troll spit, but really, how are the facts under #2 consistent with the “hacker” theory (or are these facts disputed)?

Sure is concern troll in here…

No concern trolling, I am not pretending to be a liberal. I just want to know how you would respond because none of the liberal bloggers I’ve come across (or most of the news stories) have mentioned these facts.

Emmet, thanks for making me sound so confused.  I can usually only manage to sound half that confused on my own.  Appreciate it hon!

First of all, if you read that TPM piece I posted, he did answer a question!  He explained how he ended up following this particular woman in Seattle.  So if his lawyer advised him to not answer questions, why did he answer that question, and then refuse to say “no” when the TPM reporter (hardly a hostile outlet) asked him if it was him in that picture?

Here’s what I believe may have happened:  His account WAS hacked, and it was silently hacked weeks ago, meaning the hacker did not let on they had access.  The hacker (this patriot whatever guy) saw some pictures in there that Weiner would not want made public.  He waited a few weeks to see what else he could find out.  He then tweeted the picture.  (Sorry, I have yet to be able to find anywhere that the picture definitely did not get tweeted by weiner’s account, even Weiner has not denied this happened.  there’s a daily kos blogger who claims to have proved this didn’t happen, that’s who everyone is quothing, knowingly or otherwise, and I don’t believe it’s a definitive account of what transpired)

That would explain both how patriot knew two weeks ago that a Weiner twitter scandal was in the offing, and why Weiner won’t state that the picture is not him.  It would also explain why, so far, no one at the FBI or the capital police appears to have been called to investigate the “hacking” (weiner’s words)  In other words, OMG this might not be a completely simple he did, he didn’t, affair. 

It really burns me that liberals are lining up like ducks on this. BEcause of a freaking daily kos diary.  Meanwhile, the more you deny, the better it looks for BReibart if and when the truth comes out.  I don’t give a flying fuck about Weiner’s dick shots, if that is him.  The only damage Weiner will have done is giving Breibart cred.  And that’s a lot of fucking damage, and for that, he’ll have to answer.  He has handled this terribly, IMO, and that holds whether he is somewhat guilty, completely guilty, or completely innocent.

“Is that you in that picture”

“NO”

WTF are liberals claiming there is any excuse for that exhcange not taking place?  Lawyer told him not to answer questions?  Oh really.  And yet, he did answer another, much more complex question, in that very exchange with that very reporter.

And anyone who claims that Weiner already answerd that the picture was not of him, please link up.  I have found him stating that his account was hacked.  I have been unable to find him saying that the picture wasn’t of him.  I’d love to see him saying that, because believe it or not - not a concern troll!  I hate Breibert to the point where when I see his picture I feel enraged.  The man is a racist lying scumbag and CNN, CNN! gives him credibility.  If Weiner also gave him credibility with this?  We will never be rid of him.  Never.  Not ever.  Ever.

LOL @Observito. “Grooming” her for what exactly? She’s an adult! She probably isn’t a virgin, but if she is, I am guessing she is aware of the existence of sex. She probably thinks about it regularly. There’s even a good chance she masturbates. Most 20-year-olds are horndogs. Even *gasp* the women.

BrianX, 19:

My concern here is that even with a lawyer, there’s a good chance his career is over at the next election

Not in his district, as thecynicalromantic said, though before all this went down he was an unofficial if not official candidate for mayor in 2013. His district seems to like him (at least before the Census), but he’ll have to appeal to Staten Island and north Bronx Republicans, and to Upper East Siders who already think of him as NOKD.

Please provide a reference where Breitbart or one of his sites alleged an affair, or any in person contact between Rep Weiner and the tweet recipient.

“I don’t know him that well, he has been monitoring relationships that Congressman Weiner has been having with women, young women, who claimed to have relationships with him,” Breitbart explained. “I’m not saying what type of relationships, but people that @RepWeiner follows. Girls that are quite young — younger than the girl in question here — talk openly about Rep. Weiner, who he follows these girls.”

Following Breitbart’s interview, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin told host Randi Kaye that he regretted the network allowed Breitbart to make those claims.

“What Andrew Breitbart was insinuating about [Weiner] with young girls and stuff is outrageous,” Toobin said. “And frankly, it’s too bad that he got to say that stuff on CNN.”

Watch this video from CNN’s Newsroom, broadcast May 31, 2011.

Yawgmoth @ 40, I assumed Observito @ 32 was joking.  While you responded LOL, you seem to be taking it seriously.

@helen w.h.: The internet conservatives broke my joke detector, I can never tell what’s real anymore. :(

Daisy, I’m sorry if I insulted you.  I’m really not worked up about it and won’t be unless it comes out that Weiner actually did something wrong.  I’m only going to point out that you seem to be maddest over the idea that Breibart might gain some credibility, but—?  He’s already credible.  Not b/c he tells the truth, but b/c the media is credulous.  Whatever his degree of rightness on this issue, it’s not going to float or sink him either way.  He’s scum and he’s going to continue to do what scum does: stick around and be scummy.

Okay Emmett, sorry for being so defensive.

Yes, that is what I’m angriest about.  I guess you’re right though, that either way we’re not getting rid of him.

@Daisy,

I wouldn’t worry about it. As Joe Cannon has shown, these accounts can be hacked. Besides, there are billions of tweets being sent by millions of Twitter users every minute.  What are the odds of the only one sext being sent by only one congressmember to only one woman being seen by only one person—the same far right douche who happens to hate them both?  About the same odds of winning the Powerball jackpot with a ticket picked at random—ten times in a row. Theoretically, it’s possible; in real life, not so much.

Besides, an underwear shot? Please.  There are millions of people who could have made this, and millions more who would have passed it on.  If Breitbart is going to hatch another one of his fake scandals, the least he could do is photoshop Rep. Weiner’s face on Rep. Chris Lee’s body or something.  It’s sheer laziness otherwise.  I’d give Brietbart 0 points for originality, -10 for sloppy work, and -20 for underestimating his audience.

David123 - As shown in the link above, an abnormality in the way yfrog works allowed an outsider to post an image on Rep. Weiner’s account, which was then posted to Twitter.

Using this technique results in a slight change to how the yfrog page is displayed, hence the belief that the screnecap was (badly) photoshoped.

Now that the technique in question has been discovered, along with evidence that that’s what happened here, that and the other abnormalities/suspicious coincidences and such are providing plenty of proof that this was a frame-up.

You can even verify for yourself that the tweet was posted by Weiner’s account because there is a site called TweetCongress.org that keeps an archive of all congressional tweets. The tweet in question came from Weiner’s account and it is visible on that site for all to see. You can look it up yourself directly at TweetCongres, or more simply, just google “weiner” and “tweet congress” to find other sites that have already done so.
Comment #31: David123 on 05/31 at 11:15 PM

I don’t want to see it on another site, I want to see it on that site.  And that site doesn’t have a search function.  You can find Weiner listed but clicking on his link takes you to twitter.

Googling on weiner site:tweetcongress.org doesn’t find it, either. 

Do you have a link?  The only thing I could find on that site was a link to Breitbart’s site in a tweet on its crawl.

oldfeminist - Even if you did find it, it wouldn’t prove anything.

It now seems like what happened was a glitch was exploited to allow a third-party to upload a photo onto Weiner’s yfrog account, which then auto-updated his Twitter Feed with the pic.

It seems Weiner was online at the time and deleted it asap, but stalker dude, having known what was going on, tried to publicize the (automatic) Tweet and image before that happened.

If a site that auto-indexes congressional Tweets has record of the the automatic Tweet, so what?

Thanks for the detail, Ruby.  I use Twitter but not yfrog and don’t auto-tweet. 

The description you give suggests that the photo had to be uploaded, but I’m assuming it’s also possible to tweet an existing photo?  Isn’t that why people are speculating on why that he’s denying tweeting it but not denying it’s him?  Because they think the photo was already somewhere in his yfrog photo stash?

Obviously I have to retract the statement that this had no substance.