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Oh, My: In NBC Interview, Weiner Won’t Deny Authenticity of Lewd Photo UPDATE: Interview Video Added

Posted on | June 1, 2011 | 44 Comments

UPDATE 3:50 p.m. ET: Here is a video clip from the interview with NBC’s Luke Russert in which Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) refused to say “with certitude” that the photo of a man’s bulging underwear sent from his Twitter account was not actually his own crotch:

Hat-tip to Ace of Spades who asks:

What? Andrew Breitbart had a picture of his junk? How did Andrew Breitbart get that? What other people does Andrew Breitbart have junk-pictures of?

The sarcasm is kind of thick there.

UPDATE 4:27 p.m. ET: The New York Post:

Denying he ever sent a bawdy crotch photo of himself to a co-ed via his Twitter account, embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner said today he “can’t say with certitude” whether or not he is the person in the picture.
Asked in an interview with MSNBC that aired this afternoon whether he could confirm or deny if the crotch shot was his, Weiner said, “I can’t say with certitude.”
Despite the bizarre claim, Weiner added, “I didn’t send that picture out.” . . .
“We don’t know exactly what happened here,” he said in the interview, repeating what he has said over the past four days. “It was a prank.”

With this admission — and if he’s not denying it, isn’t that the same as admitting it? — Weiner has deepened the mystery, and thereby given new life to the story. Reporters can’t just leave this hanging there, unexplained.

Donald Douglas at American Power calls attention to this ABC News video. Notice how George Stephanopoulos (scarcely a right-winger) featured the WeinerGate story today on Good Morning America:

You see that, as Stephanopoulos says, Weiner is a “high-profile Democrat” whose avowed ambition is to become mayor of New York City — America’s most lucrative media market.

The supply-and-demand incentives for coverage of this story are therefore so strong that, liberal bias or not, the major news networks can’t simply ignore it. In fact, I had the TV in my office tuned to MSNBC for a couple hours today, then turned over to Fox News, and MSNBC actually had more coverage of the story than Fox!

You might say that Weiner is too big for his own good.

UPDATE 7:50 p.m. ET: Now a Memeorandum thread, and thanks to Left Coast Rebel who found a better quality video of the Russert/Weiner interview.

PREVIOUSLY (2:10 p.m. ET): The things you learn watching MSNBC. Just saw clips of Anthony Weiner’s interview with Luke Russert of NBC News, and here is a brief item from Huffington Post:

A day after telling reporters that he’s “not going to talk about this anymore,” Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) broke his silence Wednesday about the controversy surrounding a lewd photo sent from his Twitter account.
“This was a circumstance where someone committed a prank on the internet,” he told MSNBC’s Luke Russert. “I didn’t send [that] picture out” the congressman said, though he does not know who did. Is the photo of him? “I can’t say with certitude” he told Russert.

Weiner told Russert that the pattern of who he follows — a pattern that the New York Post noted today — is “completely random.”

Yeah. Right.

UPDATE: First things first: Let’s just state the obvious, OK? If Weiner will not deny “with certitude” that the now-infamous photo is of his own package, we can safely conclude that it is his package.

But watching the whole interview — and we’ll have the video soon enough — I think I’ve finally developed a theory of the case. If my theory is correct, then there is an obvious reason why Weiner would not want law enforcement agencies to investigate this incident.

Ask yourself this: If that was a photo of Weiner’s package, and yet he was not the one responsible for that Tweet to Gennette Cordova, how did someone else get that photo of Weiner’s package?

Time for members of Congress to demand that law-enforcement agencies investigate this incident.

UPDATE I: You will see that, in the comments below, “Charles Johnson” (who may or may not actually be the Charles Johnson) explains a theory of how Weiner’s YFrog account could have been used by someone else to send that photo.

That theory was first related to me via an e-mail tip over the weekend. I didn’t report it previously, because it wasn’t necessarily relevant. Now that Weiner has point-blank refused to deny the authenticity of the photo, however, it becomes quite relevant.

Also now arguably quite relevant? The fact that Anthony Weiner was exchanging private Twitter direct messages (DMs) with porn star Ginger Lee. I’m not prepared quite yet to explain my whole theory of this scandal — still want to aggregate more news here — but if Weiner was in private communications with women such as Ms. Lee, we might fairly suppose that he also communicated in similar manner with other women.

And here’s the key: What if some of Weiner’s lovely female Twitter “fans” were not actually fans? What if, in fact, they were quite the opposite? Could this explain how a photo of Weiner’s package ended up in the hands of the congressman’s enemies?

It’s a “honey trap,” in other words. Permit me to suggest that there must be at least one more shoe to drop — someone must have a cache of DMs or e-mails in which Weiner communicated privately with a female he presumed to be a fan. The exposure of Weiner may, therefore, only be beginning.

As Ed Driscoll says, “Plenty of Room Left on Fredo’s Boat.”

UPDATE III: Politico and CBS News are now both reporting Weiner’s “can’t say with certitude” interview (hat-tip: Donald Douglas at American Power). There is a crappy video version of the Russert interview at Real Clear Politics, but not yet an embeddable version.

Linked by Nice Deb — thanks!

PREVIOUSLY:

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Category: Anthony Weiner, Congress, MSNBC, New York, Scandal

Comments

  • http://www.weiner.house.gov/ Anthony Weiner

    Completely random.  I am not being distracted by this. 

  • Charles Johnson

    Joan Walsh makes an excellent point about the “Weinergate” idiocy — even if it turns out that Rep. Weiner did send that penis picture that has driven right wing blogs into a frothing frenzy, there’s one lesson that should not be learned: Lessons I won’t learn from Weinergate.

    However, there is one lesson I won’t learn: I will never, ever take the word of Andrew Breitbart or anyone in his army of political sewer workers, over the word of someone who denies his claims, without independent proof. After Breitbart’s hit-job on Shirley Sherrod, as well as the selectively and deceptively edited tapes he used to bring down ACORN, his victims will always deserve the benefit of the doubt. Especially when, in this case, the target is not merely a politician, but a 21 year old female college student. Once Breitbart “revealed” the supposed Weiner photo, an army of drooling right-wing bloggers published the alleged recipient’s name, along with multiple photos, details about where she went to school and what she studied. Those details ricocheted around Twitter as Breitbots gleefully spread the lurid stories like spitballs. When the besieged young woman (who just happens to be African American) issued a statement Saturday night denying the Breitbart story, I believed her. I would do it again.

  • http://www.weiner.house.gov/ Anthony Weiner

    Ahhh, what do you mean “even if it turns out that Rep. Weiner did send that penis picture”? 

  • Rob Guitanguran

    These guys really need to put themselves on a like a 10 second delay so they can hear how stupid they sound before we hear it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=588368258 Lisa Graas

    Wait……he acknowledged that it could actually be a picture of him? Wow. The plot thickens.

  • http://www.weiner.house.gov/ Anthony Weiner
  • Rob Guitanguran

    Yeah and when he says he can’t say ‘with certitude’ the photo isn’t of him…

    I can say with all certitude that the picture isn’t of me, how difficult can it be…unless it IS him?

  • JeffS

    A 10 second delay with about 50 repeats, to get around their attention deficit.

  • JeffS

     Hey!  Where’s Anamika?  You’d think she’d be here, carrying Weiner’s……er, water!

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Yeah, right, she just happens to be African American. Like that just fucking happens to have something to do with it.

  • http://leatherpenguin.com/wordpress/ TC_LeatherPenguin

    Is there a stash, then, of Weiner crotch shots, and he’s just not sure of this one’s provenance?

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/U4UWY4PFINHMRF45KGHLUJ67KI KE7FFL

    You DO realize how ridiculous you sound, don’t you?

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    If she’s ‘African-American’, she could be a white from South Africa.

  • Charles Johnson

    Here’s a fascinating new bit of information in the “Weinergate” (ugh) scandal. Apparently it’s possible for anyone to post a picture to anyone else’s account at the yfrog.com picture hosting site — without a password. The trick is to email a picture from a Blackberry to the user’s yfrog.com email address, with the word “@subject” in the text. This results in the picture being posted at yfrog — and a tweet being posted at Twitter with a link to the picture.
    The full details are at Cannonfire, and it certainly appears convincing. I don’t have a Blackberry, but LGF reader “ElCapitanAmerica” tried the technique described in this post, and reports that it really does work.
    This is compelling evidence that Rep. Weiner is being framed. There would have been no need to hack into his accounts because of this security hole

    Oh wait, the penis picture may actually be your penis?  Well how did the hacker get that to post on your site?  I better ask Kilgore Trout.  He knows all about hacking. 

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    ‘The plot thickens.’

    That’s what happens when you leave a wiener on the grill for too long, and, at some point, it will burst.

  • Pingback: Weiner ‘Can’t Say With Certitude’ Photo Isn’t Him, Hires Private Firm To Investigate (Just As Ace Predicted) « Nice Deb

  • Anonymous

    BWHAHAHAHA!

    ROTFLMAO!

  • http://www.weiner.house.gov/ Anthony Weiner

    Stop laughing at me!  Stop it!  You jackass!  Stop it! 

  • http://www.weiner.house.gov/ Anthony Weiner

    I am going to hike the Appalachian Trail. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1385852725 Richard Mcenroe

    MEN!  You CAN avoid ‘Wags” Weiner’s Embarrassing Problem!

    http://tinyurl.com/3stq95a

  • Anonymous

    Wiener is stroking US, how ironic lol

  • http://2011.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

    Apparently it’s possible for anyone to post a picture to anyone else’s account at the yfrog.com picture hosting site — without a password. The trick is to email a picture from a Blackberry to the user’s yfrog.com
    email address, with the word “@subject” in the text. This results in
    the picture being posted at yfrog — and a tweet being posted at Twitter
    with a link to the picture.

    If true, there should nevertheless be some record or indication of who sent it. Otherwise yfrog.com would be vulnerable to some serious quality time in front of state and federal judges.

  • Charles Johnson

    You are now banned.  From the internets.  Get off now. 

  • Anonymous

    Where’s Gloria Allred when you need her? 

    Quite a bevy of beauties here:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1393039/Anthony-Weiner-twitter-picture-Congressman-denies-sending-lewd-photo.html  

    Don’t you know some of them surely must have suffered emotional abuse at the hands of a powerful lawmaker?

    Off-topic – why does the Daily Mail have more pics, video, & details on U.S. stories than our own limp media?

  • http://www.weiner.house.gov/ Anthony Weiner

    Check out my GLOWS!  (the Glorious Ladies of Weiner)If you wonder, “why?,”  you have to understand that for a nebishy Jewish kid, I am kind of thrillin that my junk is generating this kind of attention.

  • Charles Johnson

    It turns out that you don’t have to email from a Blackberry — you just need to use MMS to send the picture, from any device that supports the protocol. I’ve now confirmed that this technique also works on an iPhone.

    It also turns out that this is not really a security hole in yfrog; it’s a documented feature that’s been public knowledge for at least 2 years.

    Now excuse me, I got invited to go fishing on Lake Tahoe.  

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JQ7FTPH4VACHDSXL3G3B4ITP2M Rick Cain

    Herman’s my cousin, he’s a nice fella but we used to keep him in the cellar when he was younger.  Kinda crazy ya know, used to attack the goats and the chickens and say all sorta wierd stuff like “leveraging our fiscal future” and stuff.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JQ7FTPH4VACHDSXL3G3B4ITP2M Rick Cain

    Can’t be his junk, I thought jewish guys were small.

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  • http://hipsterjew.com/files/2010/08/340x_anthonyweineryearbook.jpg Anthony Weiner

    http://hipsterjew.com/files/2010/08/340x_anthonyweineryearbook.jpg

    It’s my natural sexual mojo.  It is irresistable to the ladies. 

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  • http://fuzislippers.blogspot.com/ FuziSlippers

    I can definitively say that there is no picture of my junk anywhere on any website or off of it.  You know how I know this with one hundred percent certitude?  Because I have never and would never take a photograph of my junk.  Who does that? 

    As Weiner apparently has so many photos of his junk floating around that he can’t identify it himself . . . well, ick.  Oh, and does anyone really believe he doesn’t know what his own weiner looks like?  Or what kind of underwear he owns?  This is ridiculous.  Of course it’s him/his.

    The theory about a honey trap is an interesting one, though.  Not sure that I buy it, but if someone did happen to notice that Weiner’s got a thing for much younger, far more attractive than he is, women and sort of pretended to be a young co-ed progressive . . . well, who could blame them for that?  I mean if someone pretended to be a young conservative women interested in you, would you send her a shot of your junk?  Thought not.  Who does that? 

    Oh, right, Weiner.  Got it. 

  • http://2011.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

    Still, it orta be possible to know who sent it.

  • Pingback: All the Weiner You Can Handle: Why MSM Can’t Ignore This Scandal : The Other McCain

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere
  • Anonymous

    Surely he can’t be held responsible for remembering the details of thousands of underwear pics he’s had taken over the last 30 days.

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