I have been following this minor scandal via Instapundit. This to make clear that I am engaged in the study of American political culture, rather than wallowing in trivial scandal like wot you might of thought.
There are two things I don’t understand.
In this video (excellent snark by Real Clear Politics: they have chosen the perfect excerpt to present without comment), the question and answer go thus:
WOLF BLITZER, CNN: “Have you ever taken a picture like this of yourself?”
REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D-NY): “I can tell you this, that there are — I have photographs. I don’t know what photographs are out there in the world of me. I don’t know what have been manipulated and doctored and we’re going to try to find out what happened. But the most important reason I want to find out what happened is to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Obviously somebody got access to my account. That’s bad. They sent a picture that makes fun of the name Weiner. I get it. Touche.”
The first thing I will briefly pretend not to understand while actually understanding perfectly, as do you, is why he does not simply answer “No”.
The second thing I truly don’t understand is why he does not simply answer “Yes”.
Times have changed. It is traditional to say at this juncture, “I am not a prude, but…” . I am a prude and proud of it. I wish times had not changed (for one thing, a whole branch of humour is being rendered obsolete now that there is no need for coded language), but changed they have. Emailing pictures of one’s wedding tackle to persons of the opposite sex really is not that unusual. Sixth formers and bored secretaries get into trouble for it every week. Fumble-fingers hitting the “Send” button with the wrong email address in the little box – or the wrong group of addresses – really is not that unusual either.
My advice in this situation has to be “man up”.
I think he’s just desperately hoping for a big earthquake, or terrorist attack, or an even bigger scandal to hit the airwaves in the next few days. If the public forgets before you admit anything, it’s about the only way you get out unscathed.
Alternately, remember that he’s a member(heh) of Congress. Lying is reflex for him.
Sex makes people crazy, either as do-ers or spectators. I say just leave the poor guy to his wife’s tender mercies – and maybe also establish the ‘weiner’ as the ISO unit of self-immolation (fitting, that!), with the ‘milliweiner’ being the quotidian measure.
The first thing I will briefly pretend not to understand while actually understanding perfectly, as do you, is why he does not simply answer “No”.
The second thing I truly don’t understand is why he does not simply answer “Yes”.
I think it’s either habitual or pathological. Politicians train themselves to dance around the questions they are asked. If there is no direct answer, there is nothing they can be pinned down on later. They always need to give themselves some wiggle room just in case. So it becomes second nature to simply not answer the question, to dance around the issue, or invoke the Chewbacca Defense.
Especially when they have gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
So now Twitter is known for something else besides the Egyptian revolution.
Seriously the guy is one of the most obnoxious politicians in Washington. I’m enjoying the fun and I’m sure its going to get better.
Also he could have become mayor of New York – We seem top have dodged that bullet.
Taylor beat me to it. Weiner is an arrogant prick (pun intended), and I am thoroughly enjoying his discomfiture. My hope was that he would succumb to the pressure and report this “hacking” (does anyone really believe that’s what happened?) to the FBI, because then when the truth came out he would be guilty of an actual crime (perjury). Unfortunately, he seems to be too smart for that. Pity.
Can anyone really comprehend how terrible it would be to have Rahm Emanuel mayor of Chicago and Anthony Weiner mayor of New York, simultaneously? The mind boggles.
H L Hencken said it was the duty of journalists to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. This is truly a case of afflicting the comfortable. AND I’M LOVING IT!!! Weiner/Wiener is a self-proclaimed protege of US Senator Chuck Schumer (D – NY) — one of the biggest pieces of shit in the US Senate.
I haven’t the faintest idea of what this is all about. I suspect I am not the only one.
“Sixth formers and bored secretaries get into trouble for it every week”
I once temped at HMRC (boo! hiss!) and two lasses got mildly reprimanded for almost crashing the intranet. What were they doing? Emailing each other pictures done in MS Paint (ouch!) of the classic graffiti cock and balls as .bmps. Clogged the server.
I also temped at the “Rural Payments Agency” but that is another story.
This needs a bit more background for those of us who are baffled what this is all about.
The short version (as it were)…
Congressman Weiner’s twitter account twittered a picture of a man wearing boxer briefs and nothing else, none of the picture being above the waist.
He did not give a clear answer to whether the picture was of him. He did, however, deny sending the twit, and claims that his account was hacked.
As with John Edwards probably being indicted today, I’m just enjoying the hell out of this. It’s not Chucky Schumer being found in a hotel room with an eight ball and some child pr0n, but it’s close.
More background. Take an obnoxious tool of a liberal Democrat congressman from New York, name him Weiner, and tie him to a mysterious tweeted pic of a turgid package in a set of grey y-fronts. Whose package? Your package? Weiner won’t say yes or no. Obviously the opportunity for cheap word play with all this is endless.
Said pic was tweeted to a 21 year-old female college student from another corner of this great land. Some may ask, “why? After all, he’s a happily married man.”. Google ‘weiner ginger lee’ for more exciting information. I will now swear off sewer water for at least the remainder of the day. This is what people talk about while we look for the next sucker to pony up for the great world ponzi sceme, but I digress.
Further proof, if any were needed, that far too many males go into politics to enhance their pulling power.
mrs llamas and I were joking last night that we don’t know which of the two partners in that mariiage we feel sorrier for – Congressman Weiner or the former chief-of-staff for Hillary Clinton (with whom, be it remembered, it used to be alleged that she had an unnatural relationship). He is an a**hole of epic proportions. Maybe she deserves him – or he her, who’s to say?
It’s been my experience that the real victims of crime hardly ever retain counsel for their defense, or hire private security firms to figure out the crimes committed against them.
Late-breaking news – how do you get Congressman Weiner to call the Capitol Police to report a crime against him? Answer – show up at his office asking for an interview.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/06/02/weiner-says-hes-done-talking-about-twitter-photo-time-to-get-back-to-work/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CBS-NewYork+%28CBS+New+York+-+News%2C+Sports%2C+Weather%2C+Traffic+and+the+Best+of+NY%29&utm_content=Twitter
How times change. In the past, your only danger in asking him for an interview was being knocked down in the rush. But now . . . .
Another good reason to stay well away from the Facebook and the Twitter and all the other ‘social media’, the prime effect of which appears to be to make trivial and sordid gaffes into worldwide embarrassments that never go away. Cui bono?
llater,
llamas
Jonathan and Perry, I should perhaps have made clearer that the link to Instapundit does not merely take you to that blog but to the results of a search within the blog for the name “Weiner”. However the comments by Sunfish and mezzrow give the basic story in a more condensed form.
It is all very trivial, I must admit. But that is sort of my point.
Natalie Solent wrote:
‘It is all very trivial, I must admit. . . . ”
Pardon me, but it is not trivial. Not now.
It was trivial – when (as any sentient being now realizes) the Congressman performed this epic fat-finger fumble and sent a supposedly-private message in a way that could be seen by the public. A skeevy and laughable act, to be sure, but still trivial.
It stopped being trivial when he began this epic and essentially laughable cover-up.
We all know what happened here. Be honest.
But this ass-clown continue to squirm and obfuscate and insist, like a 3-year-old caught with crumbs on his chin, that he didn’t do it. No matter what. And his pals in the MSM and on the left continue to covers up for him and soft-ball the issue.
That’s when it stopped being trivial. When it exposed the Congressman as a venal popinjay who is prepared to go to these extremes to avoid being exposed as an idiotic frat-boy, and when it showed his lickspittle lapdogs in the media as being quite happy to ignore or mis-report it or spin the story his way. And when it showed the base hypocrisy of many of his political supporters, both in the media and elsewhere, who are apparently quite happy to pass over this frankly-creepy incident between a 40-something Congressman and a 21-year-old co-ed of epic proportions – because he’s ‘one of us’.
If I sent a picture like that to a 21-year-old college student, unsolicited, burly men in poly-cotton blend clothing would very soon be questioning me in a room with harsh lighting and poor HVAC. And for good reason. And liberals and soi-disant-feminists would be baying for my blood. But when this creep does it – well, it doesn’t matter that he whipped it out and sent a picture of it to a college student – what matters is that he has the right voting record on abortion and Obamacare.
That’s why it’s not trivial anymore. Because of the gross, blatant, venal hypocrisy that it exposes.
llater,
llamas
Is Weiner a nasty piece of shit who refuses to admit he was trying to send a photo of his cock to a 21 year old girl, and instead sent it to the world, and is now pathetically and quite obviously lying about it? I think you’ll find that this depends on what your definition of the word “is” is.
John K gets the cigar…as it were…
One might be overlooking the previous story of a Congressman from New York:
1. Representative;
2. Christopher; and
3. Lee.
Cheers
The second thing I truly don’t understand is why he does not simply answer “Yes”.
Snap. Having seen the picture the question for me is, what male in his right mind wouldn’t claim it was his picture? Holy jeezum crow.
One other reason that he won’t give straight answers is that he knows that virtually all the MSM will refuse to touch this story and that the left wing Blogosphere will go all out to defend him, come what may. Thus the chances of anything being resolved are small, and he still hopes that it will go away.
It exposes, once again, what a partisan load of hacks that today write for and control the US MSM establishment.
There’s an easy way to ensure that a minor sex scandal becomes big, big, news in the US, and that is to append the letter “R” after the accused’s name.
Ah, the truth comes out (was there ever really any doubt, either that it would or what it would reveal?). I especially liked the “fighting back tears” part. Truly touching. As the saying goes, you’d need a heart of stone not to laugh. And of course Weiner “doesn’t plan to resign”, but if this little melodrama follows the usual script (and so far it has) he’ll be announcing his “retirement” soon. To spend more time with his long-suffering family, no doubt.
And the US Congress will be a far better place for it.
I hope he stays around for a few more months. The guy is a wonderful living example of what a leftist really thinks about women and other human beings.
Not to mention that he is a wonderful, perfect, God given, object of ridicule. I do wish Tom Lerher were still writing songs.
It only goes to show that most people are excellent judges of human nature, based upon what they see & hear others say and do. Anyone with partly-functioning brain cell knew full-well what really happened here, right from the beginning. It’s just that some didn’t want to admit it.
Weiner is soooooo gone – it’s just a matter of when and how. Remember – Breitbart has much more than what he’s released, and he is the master of letting it out at just the right rate to keep the story boiling. Right now, Weiner is begging Nancy Pelosi to let him even keep his D voting registration in Queens or wherever the heck it is in NY that he ‘represents’.
mrs llamas and I were out driving last night & listening to replays of the presser, and she made a good point (which often happens) – what about the women in all of this? Is what has been described now normal and unremarkable behaviour? (Pardon my social ignorance). Do all these various women bear no culpability at all for this sordid mess? He behaved like a total ass-clown, letting the little head do his thinking, and we all smile a wry smile and say ‘well, that’s life, he’s a man, what do you expect?’, but all these women that he associated with for years are completely blameless and, indeed, are being played as victims? We’re not going to name them, to protect their privacy and their maidenly honour – but nobody forced them to hit ‘send’, did they? For
I’m not making excuses for this meathead, merely pointing out that there’s something of a double-standard at play here. It will be interesting to see what ‘the ususal suspects’ have to say about this in the coming days. It would appear that much of the feminist liberal orthodoxy has once again stubbed its toe on reality.
llater,
llamas
This is the man who told us (last year) that the gold market was a criminal plot by Glenn Beck.
He is also the man who lied and claimed that Andrew Breitbart had hacked his twitter account and framed him with fake pictures.
And the entire smear machine media followed him – in attacking Breitbart.
Then Andrew Breitbart turned up to W’s press conference and pointed out that he had lots of evidence (about W. and all sorts of women – and how he waves his private parts at them) – whilst W. hid in a backroom till Mr Breitbart got bored and went away (perhaps he thought Breitbart was angry about being lied about and might hurt him – of course W. has lots of staff and so on, but he is still scared of one man….).
Then (after he had been totally exposed – no pun intended) W. finally emerged from the backroom he had been hiding in – and apologized and “took responsbility” for his sexual antics, and for his lies, and (he sort of apologized) and for trying to frame Andrew Breitbart for hacking his account.
But W. says he will not resign – so he is not really “taking responsibility” at all.
Where do they find these scumbags?
llamas, perhaps I missed that element of the story, but what is it these women are supposed to have sent to Weiner? He’s the one who sent them photos, and as far as I know the recepient doesn’t have to hit the “send” button to get them. Did they reciprocate and send him suggestive photos of themselves, too? Other than (possibly) a little harmless on-line flirting, what is it you think they are culpable of?
From the widely-reported interview with one of the women, Megan Broussard:
‘From there, he introduced himself to me over Facebook Chat. Within an hour, we were sending messages back and forth. It became an everyday correspondence. . . . . ‘
I think we may presume that this is representative of the connections he was making.
In other words, these women were freely and actively participating in exchanges with Weiner, sometimes over extended periods of time, that apparently included the sending of the sorts of images we’ve heard described by him. I have no kmowledge (yet) that these women sent him images of a comparable nature, although I’m sure that we will know soon enough. But that’s not actually my point.
It’s not like he was sending this material unsolicited to complete strangers. These women participated in these exchanges, allowed them to commence, allowed them to continue, and apparently did not terminate them with the onset of the sort of picture-sending we now know about. So it’s not like one minute they were discussing the individual healthcare mandate requirement, and then, out of the blue, here comes a picture of the old meat & two veg, and they recoil in horror and immediately un-friend him and assign him to Ignore. This was (apparently) a part of the interaction that they were fine with, and they allowed it to start and continue.
I’m not saying it excuses what he did – unless this is (as I asked) a perfectly-normal form of interaction between relative strangers these days, and I’m just hopelessly out of touch. But I don’t think it is – and it takes two to tango. He would not have done, or continued to do, the things he did if he had not found a steady cohort of women apparently quite happy to do it with him. And I strongly suspect that they were willing to do that (unless, as I say, this is totally unremarkable behaviour these days) because he is a US Congressman, and because they were drawn to his power, prestige and position.
I’m not saying they were ‘cupable’ of anything, in any legal sense – but then, neither is he. But I am suggesting that there is a double standard in the reporting of the female partcipants (innocent victims) vs Weiner (pervy letch).
llater,
llamas
J.M. Heinrichs, are you perhaps referring to former Representative Christopher Lee? The guy who’s own party forced him to resign?
I know Republicans get accused of “hypocrisy” a lot. Was that some lame attempt to dredge up the hypocrisy issue?
I personally don’t get it. I hear it all the time. “You guys are hypocrites; how come you’re going after Weiner when you didn’t go after Lee.”
Well, two points. We did go after Lee, and we’re not going after Weiner. Look at the official statements of people like Speaker of the House Boehner; we’re staying out of the Democrats’ way as they fumble through this.
Seriously, Weiner is a self-inflicted wound that the Democrats have to deal with. We Republicans are breaking out the popcorn and watching from the sidelines. As a matter of fact, among the Republicans I know, at least 50% don’t care if Weiner hangs on.
It’s not a problem for us if the Democrats want a national laughingstock to remain in office. We thank the Democrats for the gift.
I love the “hypocrisy”attack on Republicans – decoded it goes as follows….
“You complain that we, the msm, savagely attack any Republican accused of sexual or financial misconduct – where has we treat Democrats with kid gloves till the misconduct is proven, or even (as in the case of “Charlie” Wrangle) AFTER this misconduct is proven”.
“However you Republicans claim to have moral standards so any misconduct proves you to be hypocrites – whereas our darling Democrats have no morals at all, therefore what they do does not matter……”