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Congressman Weiner's inappropriate tweet

Puppycow said:
If it turns out that he was lying, this is another case of "the cover-up was worse than the scandal."

If he had just said, "yeah I was flirting with her, it's a free country," people could complain but it's not illegal and plenty of politicians have gotten away with worse.
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He might have gotten away with it as far as the public is concerned, but not his wife. "no honey, I was hacked, really!"
 
Strange responses, really.

I have no idea, and no interest in learning, if the guy did it or not. I would be interested in learning that he was a victim of an illegal cyber attack, however. Weiner is a public figure, and public figures are often in a no-win situation when stuff like this happens. eventually, the truth will come out, and then it will all seem incredibly unimportant. Ultimately, if he did it, it should quickly become a private issue. if he didn't do it, it should quickly become the responsibility of appropriate law enforcement to determine if it is an issue worth persuing.

What interests me most about the subject is the way that one poster in particular has responded. This thread provides the most blatantly partisan responses I've witnessed in more than 10 years of internet political forum participation. Hugely entertaining, in a "I can't believe he wrote that" kind of way.
 
Bjorn said:
I thoght the debunking showed that it wasn't a tweet at all, but a fake snapshot of a photoshopped one?

And how did this Breitbart seem to know about what would happen two weeks before it allegedly happened?
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The tweet happened. There is a removed photo on Rep. Weiner's yfrog account. That much is a certainty. Rep. Weiner claims that his account was in fact hacked. If that's true, the "hacker" would also have access to Rep. Weiner's yfrog account and would have had no need to photoshop anything.

The person who "debunked" the photo is full of :rule10.
 
Wait, we're discussing something reported by Andrew Breitbart?

Andrew Breitbart?

At some point, isn't it embarrassing to rely on a proven liar, even if you're a fake grass roots, pretend fiscal conservative, teabagger?

Look, Breitbart has lied to the public enough times that I think he should be waterboarded to get to the truth, and I'm sure all you conservatives agree. Until then? Liar, until we get a single source that saw the tweet not named "PatriotUSA" or some other wingnut.
 
Brainster said:
The only real sin is hypocrisy? How convenient for the Democrats, who never pretend to have any morals.
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There's the problem: you believe that anyone that doesn't share the so-called "family values" moral standards of the religious right has no morals. (Even while in the same breath you acknowledge that those people consider hypocrisy to be immoral.)

Many of us on the left, for example, find it deplorable that the right would like to interpose itself into women's reproductive choices and that they would deny marriage to gay couples. * Some of those same people, when caught having extramarital affairs or whatnot, and are therefore guilty of hypocrisy. That we don't consider extramarital affairs to be such a big deal (they happen at least as frequently among non-famous politicians) doesn't mean we have no morals. It merely means not every has the same morals at least with regard to specifics.

And as for politicians, I'm much more concerned about the morality of the policies and legislation they endorse than what they do in their private lives. However, if and only if they make a point of promoting legislation that would put government into the private lives of others does their own private live become fair game.

Otherwise, it's irrelevant to politics.

*ETA: For that matter we also often make moral arguments about tax policies, welfare programs, use of the military, capital punishment, etc. You know--matters of public policy which have moral ramifications.
 
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Newtons Bit said:
The tweet happened. There is a removed photo on Rep. Weiner's yfrog account. That much is a certainty.
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And this still doesn't prove that the tweet happened.

Again, it could be as I've said: that Weiner had been flirting with the coed, but Breitbart or someone else was completely responsible for the story about tweeting the photo in question. Weiner's actions to try to keep the entire matter out of the public eye makes sense, even though he might not have sent the tweet (and there remains no solid evidence that he did, and there is strong evidence--the statement of the coed--that he did not).
 
I guess the right is tired of looking foolish on economic issues so they need to remind us they're equally foolish when it comes to significantly less substantive matters.

This is a patented, classic right wing moment: "I say, did you see the picture? I am overcome with the vapors. WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!?!?"

Like the "Sarah Palin's kid is really Bristol's" idiot conspiracy theory (see what I did there, how about some bipartisanship!), even if this is true, it's a non-issue. As others have said, it's between Weiner and his wife. There can be no charge of hypocrisy because Weiner is not a sanctimonious "values" blowhard. No, this is just a Clinton-era bout of right wing panty sniffing.
 
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TraneWreck said:
Like the "Sarah Palin's kid is really Bristol's" idiot conspiracy theory (see what I did there, how about some bipartisanship!), even if this is true, it's a non-issue.
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No, TW, it's not a non-issue. If he's telling the truth, then it's a crime that needs to be prosecuted. And if he's lying, the fact that he's lying is the real problem, and it most definitely DOES matter.

There can be no charge of hypocrisy
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I don't recall anyone leveling a charge of hypocrisy on Weiner's part. This isn't about hypocrisy, but about basic honesty. You don't get a pass on dishonesty by not being a "family values" guy.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Weiner's actions to try to keep the entire matter out of the public eye makes sense, even though he might not have sent the tweet (and there remains no solid evidence that he did, and there is strong evidence--the statement of the coed--that he did not).
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The coed is in no better position than the rest of us to know if he sent the tweet. Her statement does not constitute evidence on that issue at all. And Weiner's actions don't make sense if he didn't send the tweet. If he didn't, he should be asking Twitter for IP address logs, etc. to prove that it wasn't him.
 
Check out the deer-in-the-headlights interview with Weiner at the NY Post.

The fact that he won't answer the question of whether he sent that tweet screams guilty. Yes, you can argue it's a private matter. But the voters vote for candidates based on a lot more than just an issue scorecard. I'd point out that he broke his wedding vows, but given that Bill Clinton was presiding, one has to question whether "forsaking all others" was included.
 
Brainster said:
Check out the deer-in-the-headlights interview with Weiner at the NY Post.

The fact that he won't answer the question of whether he sent that tweet screams guilty. Yes, you can argue it's a private matter. But the voters vote for candidates based on a lot more than just an issue scorecard. I'd point out that he broke his wedding vows, but given that Bill Clinton was presiding, one has to question whether "forsaking all others" was included.
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Who saw the tweet besides Breitbart and his sock puppet?
 
Ziggurat said:
The coed is in no better position than the rest of us to know if he sent the tweet. Her statement does not constitute evidence on that issue at all. And Weiner's actions don't make sense if he didn't send the tweet. If he didn't, he should be asking Twitter for IP address logs, etc. to prove that it wasn't him.
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How do we know he isn't already having twitter look into it?
 
Ziggurat said:
No, TW, it's not a non-issue. If he's telling the truth, then it's a crime that needs to be prosecuted. And if he's lying, the fact that he's lying is the real problem, and it most definitely DOES matter.
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Which is why he retained a lawyer to inform him how to pursue the issue legally. It may not be worth the investigative effort if evidence isn't available.

And the lying thing is the right-wing catch-all for how to stay pissy about an issue that shouldn't matter. This was the Bill Clinton effect: demand that he answer an irrelevant, insulting question under oath (remind me again what Monica Lewinsky had to do with Whitewater), when Clinton tries to evade the question, make that the issue.

There is no victim in this case, as the targeted woman is confident that the picture was sent by a twitter account that had been harassing her for some time after Weiner followed her.

Is it an issue that Sarah Palin lied about being pregnant? I say no. I would argue that even if you assume the nutty conspiracy was true and that Sarah Palin pretended to be pregnant, it's still stupid and not worth anyone's attention.

Not all lies are created equal, and this is a dumb story no matter what angle you try to approach from.


Ziggurat said:
I don't recall anyone leveling a charge of hypocrisy on Weiner's part. This isn't about hypocrisy, but about basic honesty. You don't get a pass on dishonesty by not being a "family values" guy.
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Ah, there's that right wing sanctimony.
 
TraneWreck said:
Which is why he retained a lawyer to inform him how to pursue the issue legally. It may not be worth the investigative effort if evidence isn't available.
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Evidence IS available. IP logs, for example. And the cops are in a much better position to both determine the availability of evidence and actually doing the investigation than his lawyer is.

Did everyone defending him just turn their brains off in regards to his lawyer and not calling the cops? Your excuses simply aren't credible.

And the lying thing is the right-wing catch-all for how to stay pissy about an issue that shouldn't matter.
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Oh, so honesty is just a right-wing thing?

Yeah, you might want to rethink that position.
 
Unabogie said:
Who saw the tweet besides Breitbart and his sock puppet?
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According to numerous websites including Gawker, the original tweet still exists on Tweet Congress, which gets all the tweets from members of Congress via an RSS feed. Weiner was able to delete it from the list of his own tweets, but there seems to be no doubt it was sent from his account, hence the "haxxers" accusation.
 
Brainster said:
According to numerous websites including Gawker, the original tweet still exists on Tweet Congress, which gets all the tweets from members of Congress via an RSS feed. Weiner was able to delete it from the list of his own tweets, but there seems to be no doubt it was sent from his account, hence the "haxxers" accusation.
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Link to the tweet on Tweet Congress?
 
Ziggurat said:
No, TW, it's not a non-issue. If he's telling the truth, then it's a crime that needs to be prosecuted. And if he's lying, the fact that he's lying is the real problem, and it most definitely DOES matter.
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First, that's a bit of a false dichotomy. He could be telling the truth about not sending the photo and trying to cover up an embarrassing cyber-relationship with the coed. In other words, his actions to protect his privacy are not necessarily inconsistent with him having been the victim of hacking. Or the story could just be made up, and it is just a prank and not hacking.

Also, do you suppose there is any human who has never lied about anything? Do you expect politicians to be different? I would say it matters if they're lying about things that affect their work in office. Otherwise, not so much.

Now, if you can show me where Weiner has been crusading against using social media networks to flirt (or whatever the allegation is) and has proposed or even supported legislation to that effect, then yes, his behavior here would be bad.

But that's not what's going on in the real world. Otherwise, you just have people trying impose their view of propriety onto others--and possibly a smear campaign.
 
Brainster said:
The fact that he won't answer the question of whether he sent that tweet screams guilty
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No, it screams, "I hired a lawyer that told me not to say anything."

Maybe not the greatest PR, but certainly not evidence of anything in particular. Any competent lawyer would tell him to shut up until more information was available.
 
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Unabogie said:
Link to the tweet on Tweet Congress?
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I see a link in the Gawker article but it just goes to the House section of Tweet Congress and shows a livestream of tweets from Reps.

The statement that the tweet still exists on Tweet Congress is a simple enough one to substantiate. As you say--post a link to it. (I don't even see an archive or search feature on the page the Gawker article linked to.)
 
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