Year: 2011

All the Weiner You Can Handle: Why MSM Can’t Ignore This Scandal Now

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Thanks to Tim Daniel at Left Coast Rebel for locating this video of Luke Russert’s devastating interview with Rep. Anthony Weiner:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Big props to Luke Russert for asking tough questions. Compare and contrast to the utter uselessness of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer whose Weiner interview is transcribed by Ace of Spades.

Now, I have gotten a bit of kidding from my friends about being in all-Weiner, all-the-time mode the past few days:

The Other McCain Is Big on Weiner Coverage

Har-de-har-har. That’s OK. Take a look at Memeorandum:

Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com broke the story in the wee hours Saturday, but now? Oh, everybody else is covering the story like they discovered it themselves. I was one of a relative handful of bloggers — and we were all those horrible, nasty right-wingers — who jumped on this story Saturday and bulldogged it relentlessly, aggregating, analyzing, expanding the story and trying to push it forward, while Luke Russert was enjoying a nice Memorial Day weekend at the beach. I make no apologies, and I’m not going to turn the story loose just because the MSM are now bigfooting all over it. And I remind readers of what I wrote earlier today:

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.

This story isn’t going away, because everybody loves a big Weiner story.

UPDATE: It is amusing to see that, on the very day that Weiner refuses to deny the authenticy of the bulging-crotch photo, a left-wing blog claims to have proof that Weiner was “framed.”

Caleb Howe at Red State doesn’t much buy into the alleged proof.

Permit me to suggest the possibility that (a) the photo actually is of Weiner’s package, however (b) the photo Tweet to Gennette Cordova actually was sent by someone other than Weiner, and yet (c) that doesn’t mean Weiner hasn’t sent photos of his package to other women.

The story, then, would be about much more than this one Tweet — something I started suspecting Sunday, although I don’t know that I have ever previously said as much here on the blog. This one Tweet to Cordova may have been the work of a hacker, but if the bulging-crotch photo is actually Weiner, it could have been obtained from someone to whom Weiner actually did send it on purpose.

This theory of the incident would explain Weiner’s visibly desperate desire to avoid a law-enforcement investigation, which would require him to answer such questions as, “Have you ever sent such photos to anyone else?” and also might involve a forensic examination of Weiner’s computer and ISP records.

UPDATE II: Ann Coulter seems to be belittling Weiner:

Weiner’s Penis Photo Dispute To Be
Settled In Small Claims Court

(Hat-tip: If You Seek Peace) But I am concerned that, by making teeny-weeny jokes about Weiner’s wiener, Miss Coulter may be creating an impression she does not wish to create. She is an unmarried woman and her derogation of Weiner as diminuitive may cause some to infer that she has extensive experience in . . . well, comparison shopping.

There is a reason, after all, that I have made no comment on the size of Weiner’s alleged bulge. If I’m going to spend four days writing about this subject, it would ill behoove me to appear personally interested in the . . . er, underlying facts of the story.

UPDATE III: Speaking of underlying facts, our friend Bob Belvedere provides several photos of Ginger Lee, the porn star who was (allegedly) exchanging DMs on Twitter with Weiner. I’m reasonably sure Ginger Lee wasn’t impressed with the size of Weiner’s wiener. A quite difficult woman to impress that way, is Ms. Lee.

(Trying not to be judgmental here, OK?)

PREVIOUSLY:


Smitty’s Verdict: I Blame The National Security Act Of 1947

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by Smitty (via Insty)

Props to SECDEF Gates. He has done an outstanding job. But I don’t think his analysis went far enough.

Gates spoke of “institutional obstacles in the Pentagon — cultural, procedural, ideological — to getting done what needed to get done” and the need for “fundamentally reshaping the priorities of the Pentagon.”
He insisted that the defense budget “is not the cause of this country’s fiscal woes,” but conceded that “as a matter of simple arithmetic and political reality,” defense cuts “must be at least part of the solution.”

The situation at the Pentagon is the Iron Triangle meets the Iron Law.

The United States is still, nominally, the hegemon, of the Western world for forty years and the full monty for the last twenty.

While not specifically disagreeing with any points the SECDEF has made, one wonders what substantially different course he proffers. If the U.S. is not the hegemon, then who? The full Ron Paul approach seems abrupt, but what alternative makes sense?

A line drawn from the National Security Act, through the War Powers Resolution of 1973, through two Gulf Wars, to the latest saber rattling in Libya traces an unhappy arc.

In his memoir “From the Shadows,” written after he left the CIA directorship in 1993, Gates likened the U.S. national security apparatus to a giant ship that changes course only with great difficulty and much less sharply from one administration to another than suggested by political rhetoric.

The good news about the DoD is that the national defense is clearly a Constitutional task. Yet, the U.S. government appears to be collapsing into an imperial federal government.

The 2012 candidate who deals most honestly with the situation and articulates an alternative path that sees the U.S. gradually unwinding its foreign entanglements will be a potent candidate, indeed.

What am I saying? Don’t we all figure that the game of globalized musical chairs is going to have a sudden, ‘unexpected’, disastrous turn Real Soon Now?

And on that cheery note, I’m off.

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

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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:

#WeinerGate: Where the Story Goes Next

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Weiner calls lewd photo
on Twitter a ‘distraction’
— Washington Post

Lawmaker in Twitter Case Assails Reporters
— New York Times

Yesterday’s televised meltdown was, I think, complete vindication for those of us in the online community who spent Memorial Day weekend trying to convince people that #WeinerGate was an honest-to-goodness genuine news story.

It’s not only real, it’s spectacular.

(Bryan Preston: “So, yeah, this story has gone mainstream.”)

A question I asked on Twitter last night: Does anyone still believe that Anthony Weiner was the innocent victim of hackers? Anyone?

Ace of Spades last night delivered a seminar to the “reality-based community” about the behavioral clues that made him so intensely suspicious of Weiner’s reaction to this alleged act of online identity theft:

I love how we’re all wingnutz because we’ve been out of the house enough to know how human beings behave. Like if they’re seriously victimized in a malicious crime, they tend to get rather angry. They don’t toss off casual jokes about it and try to change the subject right away. . . .

You should read the whole thing, because what else is the difference between conservatives and liberals, except our different understandings of human nature? Conservatism fundamentally involves a belief in the tragic permanence — the fixed and flawed quality — of the human condition. It is irremediable. There is nothing new under the sun, and people will tend to react certain ways under certain conditions.

Whereas, every day is a new day for liberals, who are always so surprised when an allegedly selfless humanitarian seeker of social justice turns out to be as flawed and corrupt as those mere mortals whom he professes himself capable of redeeming through his heaven-on-earth schemes.

What matters to the liberal is that he has good intentions. The conservative smiles at this, and asks the liberal if he knows where that road paved with good intentions proverbially leads.

OK, sermon over. If I’d wanted to be a moral philosopher, I’d have gone to grad school. Instead, I’ve spent the past 25 years in the news business and you know what? Experience matters. Continue reading #WeinerGate: Where the Story Goes Next →

LIVE AT FIVE – 06.01.11

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TOP NEWS
Obama’s No-Strings Debt Limit Hike Dies In House

Speaker of the House John Boehner

Even the House Democratic leadership wanted it dead.

Pentagon Not Ruling Out Use Of Force Against Cyberattackers
Colonel Lapan: “…all appropriate options would be on the table.”
Palin Puts Bus Tour On Pause For Meeting With The Donald
Game of playing keep-away with the lamestream media continues
POLITICS
Supremes Reject Lawsuit Against Former AG Ashcroft

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft

Unanimous decision kiboshes lawsuits by those held as material witnesses but not charged

Special Session Begins For Texas Legislature
Obama Taps Environmentalist Bryson To Head Commerce Department

Navy’s Next Carrier To Be Named After JFK

Blagojevich: I Was Only Seeking A Legal “Horse Trade”
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
AT&T Ramps Up Lobbying For Proposed T-Mobile Merger
US Stocks Finish Month Higher, Shrug Off Weak Economic News
Shiller Says Housing As Investment Losing “Enthusiasm” (Video)
Intuit: Small-business Jobs Rise In Mountain States
Goldman Denies Offering Libya An Equity Stake
Gold Declines On Greece Bailout Speculation
Apple’s Very Own “Patch Tuesday” Deals With MacDefender Scareware
Zynga Moves Into Combat Zone With “Empires And Allies”
SPORTS
Lakers To Discover What Brown Can Do

Lakers head coach Mike Brown chats with VP of Basketball Ops Jim and team owner Jerry Buss

Former Cavaliers coach “not here to fill” Phil Jackson’s shoes

Just When You Think It Can’t Get Any Worse In College Football

Argentina’s National Soccer Team Settles Debt To Blessed Mother

Winnipeg’s Gain Is Atlanta’s Loss As Thrashers Move North

Espinosa Homers Twice As Nats Light Up Lee, Crush Phillies

Pirates’ Bats Come Alive Late Against Mets For 5-1 Win

Robinson Cancel Called Up To Astros: The Definition Of Persistence
FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Donald Sutherland Cast As President Snow For “The Hunger Games”

Donald Sutherland

When you need the gold standard in creepy & evil…

Jennifer Lopez, Mark Anthony Trek Across Latin America For New Show

Queen Of Extremes: Angelina Jolie

That’s Princess Catherine To You

Hayden Panettiere Rebounds With NFL Hunk Mark Sanchez

Amy Winehouse Told:  Quit Booze Or Die
Cheryl Cole Feels “Hung Out To Dry” After “X-Factor” Firing

Snooki Loses License, Faces Possible Lawsuit After Crash

Jeff Conaway Family Insists On Autopsy To Rule Out Foul Play

Rep: Blake Lively Nude Photos Are Fake

FOREIGNERS
Qaddafi Regime Claims 700 Dead From NATO Bombings
Violence Erupts In Yemen As Cease-Fire Breaks Down
German E. Coli Outbreak Claims More Lives
Bundeskanzler Merkel On High-Profile State Visit To India
Murdered Pakistani Journalist Warned By ISI Over Terrorism Reporting
Bahrain Ends State Of Emergency, Promises Reform Talks
Israel’s Navy Trains For Incoming Gaza Flotilla
Suspect In Anna Politovskaya Murder Arrested
BLOGS & STUFF
Don Surber: So Quit Acting Like Papparazzi
Republican Redefined: Debt Ceiling Increase Goes Down In House
Allahpundit: Uh Oh – Wisconsin Board Ratifies Six Recall Elections Against GOP, Delays Decision On Democrats
Lonely Conservative: Commerce Pick Bryson Is “Green Evangelist”; Inhofe Promises Filibuster
Stars & Stripes: Ranger To Be Awarded Medal Of Honor
Jihad Watch: Chutzpah Alert – Belgian Muslim Organization Sues Sociologist For Linking Islam, Antisemitism
Verum Serum: Confirmed – Huntsman Supported Insurance Mandate (Video)
Doug Ross: The Obamaconomy In Two Mind-Blowing Pictures

— compiled by Wombat-socho

#WeinerGate OMFG! @RepWeiner Gives Worst Press Conference EVAH! (Video)

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I’ll add commentary and links in a few minutes. But it’s kinda superfluous after this astoundingly bad performance:

UPDATE: Ace of Spades finds the video . . . arousing.

The video is from Mediaite.

UPDATE II: Having previously remarked on the power of simple sentences, we see in this video how Weiner fails to provide a simple answer to the simple question conservative bloggers have been asking for three days: If you are the victim of a crime, why haven’t you reported it to the police?

People who had previously doubted Weiner’s guilt are, I’m sure, now beginning to doubt his innocence. And after a politician famous for his media savvy has such a spectacular meltdown on camera, it’s hard to pretend it’s not newsworthy.

Ed Morrissey is now blogging it at Hot Air (via Memeorandum).

Linked by Unified Patriots and by Bob Belvedere at The Camp of the Saints — thanks!

UPDATE III: Donald Douglas has video of a CNN segment on WeinerGate featuring an interview with Andrew Breitbart, and some astoundingly dismissive comments by CNN “legal analyst” Jeffrey Toobin.

Questions for Jeffrey Toobin: Did the people who elected and re-elected Anthony Weiner know they were voting for a man who, though married, would send photos of his phallic tumesence to a 21-year-old coed he never met? Is it merely a “lighthearted story” if an influential member of Congress (apparently) does such a thing, and then tries to claim he was the victim of Internet identity thieves whom he (strange to say) shows no interest in prosecuting?

I’d just like to know your opinion of these things, Mr. Toobin, because if my congressman, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) starts Tweeting pictures of his junk to my 21-year-old daughter, I wouldn’t consider it a “lighthearted story.”

Just sayin’ . . .

UPDATE IV: LInked by Brian Preston at Pajamas Media and by That Mr. G Guy — thanks!

Weiner is starting to lose his liberal media Teflon: “Evading questions . . . is a strategy most often utilized by people with something to hide, and will only further pique the media’s interest. Weiner either has something to hide, or he has no idea how the media operates.” (My hunch: The former.)

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin returns from family vacation and writes: “Weiner’s certainly not doing himself any favors with his Talk-y McTalkingpoints deflection of the brouhaha. Even the Beltway press is not buying it.” You want to be sure and read the whole thing, because she gives Ace a little love-tap.

UPDATE V: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Some readers are reporting temporary outages due to server overload. I’ve put in a request for extra bandwidth from our host-servers. My apologies for the temporary technical problem.

UPDATE VI: OK, looks like the bandwidth issue has been resolved. Speaking of “issue,” did you know Jeffrey Toobin has some issues? And by “issues” I mean, shtupping Jeff Greenfield’s daughter.

At least Tweets don’t cause pregnancy.

“A lighthearted story,” I’m sure.

CNN: The Most Trusted Name in News
(And by ‘News’ We Mean ‘Shtupping the Daughters of CBS Analysts’)

UPDATE VII: Did you see how I just totally jacked that classic Ace riff? But if it wasn’t for the jokes I steal, I’d have nothin’.

But I only steal from the best, and I try to give back. Ace and his merry Morons have been killing on WeinerGate. To wit: “Of course, no Democratic sex scandal is complete until Amanda Marcotte embarrasses herself.”

Also, place your bets on the WeinerGate denouement. My money says: Terse statement of admission late Thursday, followed by tearful hugfest with Rachel Maddow on Friday.

Linked by Conservative Hideout — thanks!

UPDATE VIII: Breitbart’s message to Toobin: Mess with the bull, you get the horns, baby. Breitbart name-checked CNN’s Toobin — mentioning Toobin’s own sex scandal — during an interview on Fox Business.

But really, who are we to judge? Let him who has not impregnated a friend’s daughter cast the first stone.

(BTW, a friend of mine asked, “Why is Breitbart making this about the media, instead of about Weiner? Because that’s what Breitbart is about 24/7: Understand that he doesn’t care whether any particular TV personality or newspaper writer is liberal. But he’s sick and tired of liberals holding up a warped funhouse mirror that distorts everything. Andrew knows exactly what he wants to accomplish, and he certainly seems to be accomplishing a lot more than some people who just sit around whining about media bias.)

UPDATE IX: Linked by Nice Deb, Republican Redefined, Outside the Beltway and Gay Patriot — thanks!


The Power of Simple Sentences

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Why is Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) ready to “move on” now?

Some statements are either true or false. Expressing things in simple declarative sentences helps clarify meaning, so that we can either agree or disagree as to the truth or falsehood of such statements. Here are three examples:

SENTENCE 1

On Nov. 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy in Dallas.

SENTENCE 2

On Sept. 11, 2001, nineteen Islamic radicals perpetrated the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history.

SENTENCE 3

On May 27, 2011, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) used his Twitter account to send a photo of his bulging crotch to a 21-year-old college coed from Seattle he had never met.

There are people who doubt Sentence 1 and/or Sentence 2, but most who have studied those incidents have concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin in Dallas, and that Mohammed Atta & Co. were responsible for 9/11. We now turn our attention to Sentence 3.

Do we know that Sentence 3 is true? No.

Do we know that Sentence 3 is false? Again, no.

What we have are (a) the uncontested fact that, on Friday, Weiner’s Twitter account was used to send a YFrog link of the aforesaid bulging crotch photo, and (b) the statements of Weiner and his spokesman that the congressman was the victim of “hackers,” an accusation of criminality subsequently softened to “prank.”

We do not need to choose between these alternatives in order to conclude that it is a worth the effort required to determine the truth or falsehood of Sentence 3. Continue reading The Power of Simple Sentences →