The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Herman Cain Hits the Big Time

Posted on | June 5, 2011 | 33 Comments

Kate Zernike features Cain in the New York Times:

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Michele Bachmann was campaigning just north of here, the Sarah Palin tour was rumored to be arriving soon, and Mitt Romney was on his way to announce his entry into the presidential race.
Yet here was another voter swooning for Herman Cain.
“I watched you at the Republican debate, and I have to be honest, I’d never heard of you, but ever since that. …” said Nathan Lyons, 29, his voice trailing off wistfully. “You say it like it is.”
Joan Silvernail, 68, pumped Mr. Cain’s hand, then turned to her husband. “It’s his enthusiasm,” she said. “Wasn’t that what we felt with Ronald Reagan, his enthusiasm?”
Those not frequenting Tea Party rallies or the living rooms and coffee shops of New Hampshire and Iowa might dismiss Mr. Cain, a talk radio host and former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, as a frivolous candidate — “the pizza guy” as some call him.
But there are signs of what Mr. Cain, in his booming baritone, calls “Old Man Mo — Momentum!”
A Gallup poll released last week showed Mr. Cain with the highest voter intensity score of any Republican presidential contender — far higher than Ms. Palin, a former governor of Alaska, or Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts. While Mr. Cain’s name recognition was at 37 percent, it had risen 16 points since March. . . .

Read the whole thing — it’s 1,400 words, which is a lot of words for the New York Times to devote to a candidate that all the pundits keep telling us can’t win.

Isn’t it time you joined the online grassroots army at Citizens for Cain?

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, New Hampshire, New York Times

‘Is He the New Tiger Woods?’

Posted on | June 4, 2011 | 59 Comments

The title quote is from Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition in a story by Matthew Boyle of the Daily Caller:

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin told The Daily Caller Weiner’s “long history” of “skirt-chasing” raises more questions about the New York Democrat’s Capitol Hill sexual secrets and expects more women with similar stories to come forward.
“Stories about his hot pursuits of young Capitol Hill interns date back to 2001,” Malkin said in an email. “At least one young woman told liberal Vanity Fair magazine that Weiner hunted down her e-mail address, bragged about riding on Air Force One, and extended an invitation to visit his office in person. The photo gallery of his select group of young female followers/followees on Twitter suggests a continued hunt.”
Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition expects this emerging pattern to get bigger and clearer soon. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” she told TheDC on Wednesday. “How many other women are going to come forward? Is he the new Tiger Woods?”
Malkin worries about the young female staffers and interns in Weiner’s office and in nearby offices. It’s a possibility they could feel threatened or pressured by Weiner’s advances.

Read the whole thing. While a good reporter never burns his sources, trust me when I say that these kinds of questions are now the subject of intensive scrutiny by journalists, who are checking off names on lists as possible objects of Weiner’s amorous interest. Laffety’s hunch — “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” — is shared by a lot of people, both in the Beltway press and the New Media.

There may be other high-heeled shoes dropping, if any ladies on Capitol Hill have tales to tell. The press-corps piranhas smell blood in the water and Weiner deeply offended Washington journalists by trying to stonewall his way out of this mess, and called a CNN producer a “jackass,” to boot. I wonder if Emily Miller of The Washington Times thinks Weiner might be the kind of guy who would sexually harass attractive young female staffers.

UPDATE: The Lonely Conservative: “In all fairness to Tiger, I don’t recall him appearing before the media to tell crotch jokes.”

Linked by The Mr. G Guy and Uncoverage — thanks!

UPDATE II: Linked by Lisa Graas, Da Tech Guy and Piece of Work in Progress — thanks!

UPDATE III: A new story today by Daniel Libit at TheDaily.com says circumstantial evidence is consistent with Weiner sending the photo in question.

PREVIOUSLY:

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

‘You Can’t Lawyer the Media’

Posted on | June 4, 2011 | 16 Comments

So said Andrea Tantaros during a panel discussion of WeinerGate today on “Fox News Watch”:

Colby Hall of Mediaite.com was interviewed on MSNBC today about the continuing scandal:

“When it broke, all there was left we could do was to speculate reasonably, until his statement that he could not say with certitude whether or not that image was his. You could almost feel like the nation raised their eyebrows and said, ‘Wait, what?'”

(Hat-tip: Pat Dollard.) Some more recent WeinerGate headlines you might have missed:

Anthony Weiner’s bulging controversy
a classic example of abysmal damage control
— Thomas M. Defrank, New York Daily News

Here’s the lowdown on ‘Weinergate’
— Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald

Weiner’s Seat Could Go Republican
— John Gizzi, Human Events

NPR’s Totenberg: ‘We Shouldn’t Care About
Weinergate – It’s a Great Lark of a Diversion’
— Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters.com

Anthony Weiner’s odd reality
— Richard Cohen, Washington Post

The Ick-arus of Capitol Hill
— Michelle Malkin

Dan Wolfe Steps Up
— VerumSerum.com

I Hate to Have to Say It But I Very Firmly Feel…
— Lisa Graas

Rather than tell you what I think about all this stuff, I figure I’d just link the headlines. You can click the links you want, quote whatever strikes you as most relevant, and express your own opinion in the comments.

Category: Anthony Weiner, Congress, Democrats, New York, Scandal, Video

‘UR SO HOT! C MY WANG?’
(Or, #WeinerGate Explained)

Posted on | June 4, 2011 | 24 Comments

Mark Steyn quotes Little Miss Attila in regard to The Story That Won’t Go Away. (“If you experience an erection lasting more than four news cycles, call a spin doctor.”) Attila said:

Everyone lies about Twitter-flirting, and everyone knows that everyone lies about Twitter-flirting.

Kellie Jane said that it is actually not so unusual for guys to do what Weiner is accused of doing. I was skeptical: “What’s up with guys getting drunk and tweeting their junk? Is it really that common?”

This seems to be a generational phenomenon explained to me in an e-mail from a university professor, who says he read it on another blog:

Sending the tumescent wiener pic is, apparently, what one does in response to an explicit text/direct message from your sexting buddy. To show your appreciation.
Until I read this I was confused too, because it seemed odd that someone would think the pic in question so arousing or attractive. But as a “look at what you just said did to me” gesture, it makes a lot more sense, no?

It makes about as much sense as anything else nowadays. The sexual customs of the younger generation mystify me. Back in the day . . .

No, no. Never mind my old stories. I’m just grateful I hung up the spurs and got married before the advent of digital photography and the Internet. Of course, there is that old Speedo pic . . .

Category: Anthony Weiner, Culture, Scandal, Sex

Draft Reynolds 2012?

Posted on | June 4, 2011 | 42 Comments

“The people who think they’re smart enough, and morally superior enough, to run everyone else’s lives are risible. They’re not smart enough to run their own lives competently, and they’re actually, overall, morally inferior … They pursue power, and they exercise power, as much for deference as anything else.”
— Professor Glenn Reynolds

He’s got a good point. People who conspicuously crave power over others do not usually exercise power for good ends.

Outside of politics, we recognize that a desire to run other peoples’ lives — to boss them around — is the manifestation of a sadistic personality. Nobody likes a bully in real life and yet, in politics, we see how people acquire power by proclaiming that the rest of us are not competent to run our own lives and therefore need government to tell us what to do for our own good.

The Big Lie of liberalism is that liberals are morally superior to the rest of us merely because they’re liberals. Vote for them, and you can be morally superior, too! And then they’ll be bossing everyone around with your approval and permission.

To which I answer not just no, but hell no.

We should not give power to people who crave it so desperately. We should find someone who doesn’t want power and put them in charge.

GLENN REYNOLDS for PRESIDENT
Because It’s Saturday, and I Need the Traffic

UPDATE: The predictable Shermanesque response.

Normal blog etiquette, when linked by Instapundit, is to say, “Welcome, Instapundit readers!” But that seems rather redundant at this point, doesn’t it? So instead I’ll invite you to hit my tip jar, because it is, after all, Saturday. And my wife is sick.


Category: Anthony Weiner, Election 2012, Instapundit

GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!

Posted on | June 4, 2011 | 33 Comments

Luke Broadwater of the Baltimore Sun really wanted to believe Anthony Weiner was innocent . . .

But then I heard Weiner start to explain himself and everything changed. The more he talked, the more it became obvious that not only is the photo of him, but he sent it. . . .
“I think this is one of the worst public relations strategies regarding an embarrassing event for a public figure that I have witnessed,” writes Towson University communications professor Richard Vatz in an email about Weiner’s press interactions. “It is obviously a picture of him, taken for a possible variety of reasons, but his inelegant warding off of the inquiries should have instead been a refusal to engage the issue. That would not have solved the problem, but it would have lessened the humiliating spectacle which exacerbates his problems.” . . .
Weiner says he doesn’t want the police to investigate and tries to make the case that it would be a waste of federal dollars. (Let’s not forget that police are already paid salaries to investigate crimes.) The only reason that makes any sense why he doesn’t want the police to investigate is because he’s afraid they would find out that he sent the tweet and that his hacker claim is a lie. If he was truly hacked and publicly humiliated by a political opponent, he would want that person brought to justice.

Via AOSHQ Headlines. To explain the headline, for kids too young to remember when Doonesbury was funny:

And today’s Washington Post headline:

Who had the worst week in Washington?
With certitude, Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Don’t you feel sorry for the guy’s wife? The New York Post:

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s humiliated wife sheepishly showed her face at a Washington event yesterday, keeping a stiff upper lip amid the swirling scandal surrounding her husband’s tawdry Twitter photo.
Huma Abedin, 34, briefly hesitated at the State Department ballroom door before working up the courage to go in — but she left after just five minutes and steered clear of her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Seriously, an investigation? Your penis didn’t rob the Bellagio.”

UPDATE: Lisa Graas has a theory, but doesn’t link my blog. Dan Collins has no theories, but does link my blog and, even though Dan’s name isn’t “Ace,” the name of the game here is Link My Blog.

So Dan wins that round, if you’re keeping score at home.

UPDATE II: Lisa Graas has now updated to link me, so she is now even with Dan “I’m Not Ace” Collins. Meanwhile, I’m also linked at King Shamus and POH Diaries — thanks!

UPDATE III: Now that we’re caught up on the Link My Blog game, let’s take a look at some other blogs, shall we?

Ladd Ehlinger Jr. scored an online interview with Dan Wolfe (a/k/a “PatriotUSA76”) whose anti-Weiner obsession explains why he was the first to re-Tweet the now-infamous crotch-shot.

The Smoking Gun has the goods on “GoatsRed,” who was ping-ponging anti-Weiner items on Twitter with PatriotUSA76. Let’s see: Foul-mouthed porn-forum moderator, twice bankrupt, IRS liens, domestic-violence rap sheet . . . .

Well, OK. And this is relevant how?

  1. You gotta be careful who you trust on the Internet; and
  2. People are wrong to think they can maintain multiple identities online, while engaging in atrocious online behavior, and that none of this can ever be connected to their real-life selves.

But this says nothing about the facts of the case in regard to whether Anthony Weiner’s been sending photos of his junk online, except perhaps that Weiner’s supporters are obsessed with the two Twitter users who busted Weiner.

UPDATE IV: It’s kind of weird that the three Weiner threads today on Memeorandum — here, here and here — are scattered up and down the page, rather than aggregated together. Memeorandum is basically run by an algorithmic formula, and I’m not sure what this odd pattern shows about how bloggers are aggregating the story. But I thought I’d point it out.

UPDATE V: Associated Press:

“Weiner Exposed.” “Weiner’s Pickle.” “Battle of the Bulge.”
Those were some of the tabloid headlines lampooning Rep. Anthony Weiner as he struggled to explain how a photo of a man’s crotch had been posted to his Twitter account. The normally media-savvy New York Democrat squandered his chance to make it right with a cringe-inducing TV blitz that raised more questions than it answered.
It’s a surprising turn for the pugnacious 46-year old Brooklyn native, who until this mess was widely seen as one of the smartest members of Congress.

“Surprising”? Maybe “ironic” would be a better word, but when you think about it, how often do smart guys turn out to be a lot less smart than they seem to be? Being smart, they become arrogant, then they start thinking the rules don’t apply to them and  then — bingo! — it all falls apart.

Isn’t that what happened to John Edwards, for example?

UPDATE VI: Linked by Dave C. and Republican Redefined — thanks!

Category: Anthony Weiner, Congress, New York, Scandal

What Da Tech Guy Said

Posted on | June 4, 2011 | 36 Comments

“That I would see something like this in an American city while survivors of the ovens are still alive is obscene.”

When I saw what Zombie posted at Pajamas Media, I was so profoundly shocked that I sent out the link on Twitter with a short headline, a link and “OMFG.” Then I tried to sleep for a few hours, and when I woke up, I found I had more than 90 re-Tweets.

I’ve called the argument over circumcision “The World’s Most Idiotic Debate.” I wrote last month about the “Foreskin Fetishists” behind the anti-circumcision movement, including the attempt to ban circumcision in San Francisco.

Now? They’re Foreskin Fascisti.

Jeff Goldstein: “Incidentally, when we said never again? We meant it.”

UPDATE: Moe Lane: “Andrew Sullivan is a noted anti-male circumcision advocate, which should tell you right there that they’re reliably nuts.”

Category: Culture

Because I Know What’s News

Posted on | June 3, 2011 | 34 Comments

“Has there ever been more manufactured and phony hype about a certifiable non-issue than so-called WeinerGate?”
— John Guardiano, “Weinergate: What’s the Big Deal?” Frum Forum

Few things annoy me more than having my news judgment questioned. Disagree on policy or doubt me on politics — we might argue, but such arguments do not call into question my competence as a professional journalist. And, by God, after 25 years in the news business, I know what’s news.

So I don’t mind the good-natured kidding I get about being all-Weiner, all-the-time for an entire week. While I initially reacted to Anthony Weiner’s apparent Twitter faux-pas as a mere joke, as soon as I began researching the background of last weekend’s incident I realized, Hey, there’s a legit news story here.

What’s more, there was a perfect opportunity to get ahead of the story, because the mainstream media had been initially reluctant to report it. Saturday afternoon, I checked Google News and there was zero, zilch, nada from major news organizations. Yet I anticipated (correctly) how the story would develop, and so began hoovering up every fact I could find online and aggregating every tidbit of information other bloggers were reporting.

Simple fact: Weiner is from New York, home of America’s best tabloid press. If you thought the NY Post and the Daily News weren’t going to make this front-page news, you’re crazy. And while no one could have predicted the spectacular awfulness of Weiner’s Tuesday press-conference meltdown, once it happened, it was blood-in-the-water time.

The story continues to develop. CNN’s Dana Bash reports Democrats are unsatisfied with Weiner’s response to the scandal so far:

Members of the House Democratic leadership have talked repeatedly to Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-New York, to try to get him to end what several Democrats call an unwelcome political distraction, a member of the party’s leadership tells CNN.
“It’s frustrating because we’ll talk to him, and say clean it up, and then he goes out and does stuff,” said the member of the House Democratic leadership, who declined to speak for the record about private discussions with Weiner.
“He’s got to put the period at the end of the sentence,” said the Democratic source, “it’s painful.”

And the story’s the same in the New York Post:

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s onetime Democrat allies were quick to abandon the lawmaker yesterday, just hours after he admitted it certainly could be his bulging crotch shot that was sent to a cute co-ed from his Twitter account.
Party backers in New York and Washington publicly criticized the randy rep’s attempts at damage control and his inability to shake the scandal. . . .
And in a major blow, some pols said outright that Weiner has crushed his dream of becoming the Big Apple’s next mayor — and may even have undermined the next election for his Brooklyn-Queens congressional seat, which he has held for six terms.
“Something like this better be put to rest,” said power broker Vito Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic chairman.
“If it’s left outstanding, it could have damaging impact, even if it means the difference of 3 or 4 percent of the vote in a very competitive four-way or five-way race,” Lopez said about Weiner’s chances in a mayoral contest.

You see what I’m talking about? As silly or as trivial as the whole situation may seem, Weiner has painted himself into a corner and it’s hard to see a good way for him to get out of it. Here’s an Associated Press video:

The one way out is the way Weiner has refused to take — call the cops:

There’s one way Rep. Anthony Weiner could show that he didn’t send a salacious photo to a female college student from his Twitter account: Ask law enforcement to investigate.
The New York congressman has so far declined to ask for an investigation into the photo, saying it’s not a worthy use of government resources. The U.S. Capitol Police said it would not launch an investigation unless requested.
In asking a private security firm to investigate instead, Weiner won’t be able to prove his innocence by obtaining logs from Twitter showing where his account was accessed from. Twitter says it requires a subpoena or court order to hand over such information. A subpoena or court order would have to be initiated by police or the FBI, not private detectives.

And, with hat-tips to Ace of Spades and Iowahawk, here’s the latest viral video sensation:

Finally, all the possibilities surrounding the role of “@PatriotUSA76” in WeinerGate are hashed out by Ace of Spades.

UPDATE: Simple explanation:

I’m a girl. I’ve been on Twitter over two years. I know exactly what happened. . . .

Read the whole thing. What’s up with guys getting drunk and tweeting their junk? Is it really that common?

PREVIOUSLY:


Category: Anthony Weiner, Journalism, Media Bias, New York, Scandal
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