Congressman Weiner's inappropriate tweet

[Nova Land]

We have several people behaving suspiciously here, any of whom could be guilty of wrong-doing in this matter: Anthony Weiner, Andrew Breitbart, and Dan Wolfe. The same standard of scrutiny should be applied to each of them.

It's possible Weiner posted the offending picture, not realizing what he's doing. It's possible Wolfe posted the offending picture in an attempt Weiner. There are credible speculations both ways.

And if Wolfe did indeed pull off a stunt to try to frame Weiner, it's possible Breitbart had some foreknowledge; or it's possible -- as Breitbart currently seems to be trying to establish -- that Breitbart was simply a dupe.

Weiner has answered some questions evasively. But if that is to be taken as proof of his guilt, then the same should apply to Wolfe and Breitbart. Wolfe has been at least as evasive as Weiner; I would say more. If Weiner's evasions prove he is guilty, then do Wolfe's evasions prove he is guilty as well?

To use one standard when evaluating Weiner's testimony, and then use a completely different one when evaluating Breitbart's and Wolfe's, is foolish if the aim is to get at the truth.

While evasiveness can be an indication of guilt, it is not necessarily one. Those who come to a solid conclusion on such a flimsy basis are very poor skeptics.

 

[Brainster]

My apologies. I missed the sarcasm.

You've missed everything in this thread.

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

You've missed everything in this thread.

That's very witty! Did you come up with that one yourself?


GB

 

[Nova Land]

Can anyone explain to me why it makes any difference how many women and men follow each other on twitter? And how it's actually relevant other than to fuel even more speculation about Rep Weiner?

There is an allegation being made by Weiner's critics -- as yet with no factual basis -- that Weiner is flirting with (and possibly cheating with) various women. If this allegation were true, it would lend credence to the right-wing theory that Weiner himself sent out the tweet in question.

Ziggurat is one of the folks who apparently believes the allegation and is trying to offer justification for that belief. To do that he put forward the assertion that Weiner follows an "inordinate" number of women on Twitter.

The problem is, Zig didn't actually provide evidence to support that assertion. He simply waved a little list.

When Cleon, using the numbers Zig provided, compared Weiner's ratio of women-he-follows to his own ratio of women-he-follows, Weiner's appeared to be lower than Cleon's. Zig said that wasn't the appropriate comparison. I simply pointed out what would be an appropriate comparison.

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

We have several people behaving suspiciously here, any of whom could be guilty of wrong-doing in this matter: Anthony Weiner, Andrew Breitbart, and Dan Wolfe. The same standard of scrutiny should be applied to each of them.

It's possible Weiner posted the offending picture, not realizing what he's doing. It's possible Wolfe posted the offending picture in an attempt Weiner. There are credible speculations both ways.

And if Wolfe did indeed pull off a stunt to try to frame Weiner, it's possible Breitbart had some foreknowledge; or it's possible -- as Breitbart currently seems to be trying to establish -- that Breitbart was simply a dupe.

Weiner has answered some questions evasively. But if that is to be taken as proof of his guilt, then the same should apply to Wolfe and Breitbart. Wolfe has been at least as evasive as Weiner; I would say more. If Weiner's evasions prove he is guilty, then do Wolfe's evasions prove he is guilty as well?

To use one standard when evaluating Weiner's testimony, and then use a completely different one when evaluating Breitbart's and Wolfe's, is foolish if the aim is to get at the truth.

While evasiveness can be an indication of guilt, it is not necessarily one. Those who come to a solid conclusion on such a flimsy basis are very poor skeptics.

Given Breitbart's well established MO of publishing lies attacking Liberals on his website and then blaming it on others, the only dupe would be those that believe Breitbart was duped (I'm guessing you're not one of those ).

Otherwise you are absolutely correct, everything else is sheer speculation.

GB

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

There is an allegation being made by Weiner's critics -- as yet with no factual basis -- that Weiner is flirting with (and possibly cheating with) various women. If this allegation were true, it would lend credence to the right-wing theory that Weiner himself sent out the tweet in question.

Ziggurat is one of the folks who apparently believes the allegation and is trying to offer justification for that belief. To do that he put forward the assertion that Weiner follows an "inordinate" number of women on Twitter.

The problem is, Zig didn't actually provide evidence to support that assertion. He simply waved a little list.

When Cleon, using the numbers Zig provided, compared Weiner's ratio of women-he-follows to his own ratio of women-he-follows, Weiner's appeared to be lower than Cleon's. Zig said that wasn't the appropriate comparison. I simply pointed out what would be an appropriate comparison.

Thanks for clearing that up.

So basically, once again, Speculation rules the day.

GB

 

[Nova Land]

I'm not sure if this has been posted in this thread yet, but Joseph Cannon has publicly accused Dan Wolfe of posting the offending picture and framing Anthony Weiner for doing so.

... the righties keep saying that if Weiner will not sue or investigate, then he must be guilty.

Oh really?

That logic works two ways. And so does the threat of deposition.

Let me make this statement loud and clear, in boldface, with no caveats or qualifications:

The person who tried to frame Anthony Weiner is DAN WOLFE! DAN WOLFE! DAN WOLFE! Dan Wolfe is 100% guilty of a serious ethical offense, and that fact should be made known to everyone who ever considers employing him!

I've read up on the libel laws. I know full well the import of what I am saying. I've never before used this column to level an accusation of that sort against a private citizen. I'm usually very careful about wrapping my statements in qualifying language.

By right-winger logic, if Dan does not sue me, then he must be guilty as charged.

Dan says that he welcomes an investigation. But he's lying. You know how I know he is lying? Because he won't sue me.

 

[Brainster]

That's very witty! Did you come up with that one yourself?

No, Andrew Breitbart, the originator of all evil in the world that affects liberals, came up with it.

 

[Vorticity]

Andrew Breitbart, the originator of all evil in the world that affects liberals

So.

He's the one.

I knew it!

 

[Nova Land]

Looks like Congressman Weiner has a very tech-savvy ally

Apparently not tech savvy enough.

I notice that a lot of non-skeptics like to post semi-cryptically, rather than spell things out clearly. If one's main interest is in winning a debate, that's understandable and a good strategy. If one's main interest is in trying to discern what is true and what is false, it's decidedly unhelpful.

For those interested in what Zig is referring to (and wondering why Zig avoided spelling it out more clearly), here's background and elaboration.

There is a blogger, Joseph Cannon, who has been making some interesting posts about this matter on his site Cannonfire.** Cannon is one of the people who was instrumental in discovering the loophole in yFrog which would allow someone such as Dan Wolfe to send a picture out from Weiner's account in a way that would produce exactly the same results as did occur.

I had not encountered Cannon's site before following a link to it in relation to this story, but so far I am favorably impressed by his work. He writes clearly, explaining what it is he believes and why, stating forthrightly when he is knowledgeable about something and when he isn't.

That last is a very important quality to look for; people who try to puff up their evidence or their expertise are far too common, and they make the search for truth harder.

A good example of this latter type of person is George Gooding -- who is the source Ziggurat is citing in his link. Ziggurat refrained from posting what it is that Gooding has said. That was probably a wise choice on Ziggurat's part. Gooding appears to be an unreliable source.

A website, Gooding.Com, very recently materialized. It's first post -- and so far its only post -- is an attempt to refute what Cannon has written.

For those who'd like to see what Cannon has written, here's a link to his website CannonFire.

Cannon began blogging about the Weiner matter on May 30 with a pair of posts: The Weiner smear: The Mark of Breitbart and Was Congressman Weiner smeared? Yes. Here's the evidence of fraud... I assume these have already been linked to in this thread.

Cannon continued blogging about the matter on June 1 with Case Closed! Congressman Weiner Was Framed! and on June 2 with "Crotch-gate": High tech or low tech?. Those are the posts in which he began exploring how Wolfe could have posted the picture, and having others help him test the method he theorized had been used to see if it actually could be done.

And this is where George Gooding enters the picture -- first in comments in the Cannonfire threads, then in a post of his own at the freshly-created Gooding.Com site. Gooding is claiming to be a computer expert and claiming his expertise lets him know that Cannon is wrong.

But George Gooding turns out to be as shady a character as Dan Wolfe.

Joseph Cannon does a good point-by-point refutation of Gooding's arguments in his June 2 post One last post (for this day) about l'affaire Weiner.... Today he follows up with an expose on who Gooding actually is: A mystery attacker exposed: Meet the mighty SEIXON!

George is a ghost...

Now, when I say that George is a ghost, I refer to his current spectral existence as a blogger. His site has no existence preceding the Weiner affair.

In a previous life, however, George did have a presence in Norway. Here, Mr. NonPartisan denounces "Bush hate"...

Let's dig further. Turns out George used to write under another name... Back in 2006, George wrote for the National Review and other ever-so-non-partisan venues. At the time, he used the mysterious byline Seixon.

Seixon focused on Plame-gate, always siding with rightists while pretending to be centrist... Basically, Gooding's National Review piece argued that "Plame-gate" was a con-job, a huge conspiracy against the Bush administration, concocted by a "tight knit group of intelligence professionals."

Around the same time, Gooding argued that Iraq really did have WMDs... What does he offer? Lots of complex, highly abstruse argumentation. Lots of ********...

Despite his continual defense of the W administration, "Seixon" claims to be a Democrat -- no, I'm not kidding. Obviously, that is a pose. He is a Republican operative who gets dragged out every so often...

Gooding pretends to be a computer expert, but most of what he has said is dazzling, meaningless blather. Yeah, it's true: I dislike the very idea of Twitter and refuse to use it. But many seasoned Twitterers and computer experts have verified the existence of the Yfrog exploit which this blog publicized. I ran my first post on this topic past a very computer-savvy friend, just to make sure there weren't any major mistakes. The security hole was real -- as Yfrog itself now admits.

It will be interesting to see who turns out to be right and who turns out to be wrong. But from the evidence so far, Cannon looks to be right and Gooding looks to be simply right-wing.

**Cannon is not who EvilSmurf was referring to; the tech-savvy ally EvilSmurf refers to sounds like Anonymous. But Cannon is who Ziggurat appears to have mistakenly thought EvilSmurf was referring to.

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

No, Andrew Breitbart, the originator of all evil in the world that affects liberals, came up with it.

WOW! That's exactly what I thought!

GB

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

I notice that a lot of non-skeptics like to post semi-cryptically, rather than spell things out clearly. If one's main interest is in winning a debate, that's understandable and a good strategy. If one's main interest is in trying to discern what is true and what is false, it's decidedly unhelpful.

For those interested in what Zig is referring to (and wondering why Zig avoided spelling it out more clearly), here's background and elaboration.

There is a blogger, Joseph Cannon, who has been making some interesting posts about this matter on his site Cannonfire.** Cannon is one of the people who was instrumental in discovering the loophole in yFrog which would allow someone such as Dan Wolfe to send a picture out from Weiner's account in a way that would produce exactly the same results as did occur.

I had not encountered Cannon's site before following a link to it in relation to this story, but so far I am favorably impressed by his work. He writes clearly, explaining what it is he believes and why, stating forthrightly when he is knowledgeable about something and when he isn't.

That last is a very important quality to look for; people who try to puff up their evidence or their expertise are far too common, and they make the search for truth harder.

A good example of this latter type of person is George Gooding -- who is the source Ziggurat is citing in his link. Ziggurat refrained from posting what it is that Gooding has said. That was probably a wise choice on Ziggurat's part. Gooding appears to be an unreliable source.

A website, Gooding.Com, very recently materialized. It's first post -- and so far its only post -- is an attempt to refute what Cannon has written.

For those who'd like to see what Cannon has written, here's a link to his website CannonFire.

Cannon began blogging about the Weiner matter on May 30 with a pair of posts: The Weiner smear: The Mark of Breitbart and Was Congressman Weiner smeared? Yes. Here's the evidence of fraud... I assume these have already been linked to in this thread.

Cannon continued blogging about the matter on June 1 with Case Closed! Congressman Weiner Was Framed! and on June 2 with "Crotch-gate": High tech or low tech?. Those are the posts in which he began exploring how Wolfe could have posted the picture, and having others help him test the method he theorized had been used to see if it actually could be done.

And this is where George Gooding enters the picture -- first in comments in the Cannonfire threads, then in a post of his own at the freshly-created Gooding.Com site. Gooding is claiming to be a computer expert and claiming his expertise lets him know that Cannon is wrong.

But George Gooding turns out to be as shady a character as Dan Wolfe.

Joseph Cannon does a good point-by-point refutation of Gooding's arguments in his June 2 post One last post (for this day) about l'affaire Weiner.... Today he follows up with an expose on who Gooding actually is: A mystery attacker exposed: Meet the mighty SEIXON!




It will be interesting to see who turns out to be right and who turns out to be wrong. But from the evidence so far, Cannon looks to be right and Gooding looks to be simply right-wing.

**Cannon is not who EvilSmurf was referring to; the tech-savvy ally EvilSmurf refers to sounds like Anonymous. But Cannon is who Ziggurat appears to have mistakenly thought EvilSmurf was referring to.

Brilliant! Well Done! Evidence is much more preferable than speculation (though speculation does have some value in generating hypotheses to test),

GB

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

Look folks, there's a VERY simple explanation for Weiner's behaviour. He knows that Breitbart is responsible, but he can't publicly accuse Breitbart without evidence.

And he can't call for a criminal investigation because no law was actually broken; no accounts were actually hacked. His only recourse is a private investigation to gather enough evidence to sue Breitbart.

Occam's Razor people.

GB

Yes. I concur. Every other story I could find on the subject state without equivocation that it was indeed posted on Weiner's account. the CNN article I found is the only one that is ambiguous.

I was wrong!

I retract my statement that Weiner's account wasn't hacked. Clearly his account was hacked.

I stand by the rest of my statements.

GB

Given the following excerpt from one of the Cannonfire links, I retract my retraction:

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/

Yfrog's security problem allowed any outsider to upload an image to someone else's twiiterstream. The result would look as though the account holder had uploaded the picture himself. The outsider need not know the password to do this -- therefore, this was not really a hack. It was, however, VERY sloppy security.

Yes...I know...it's not precisely what I said. I was right, but for the wrong reasons.

And I was pretty close to the mark, pointing out that Weiner couldn't call out Breitbart publicly. But again, for the wrong reasons. As Joseph Cannon points out, rules of discovery in a lawsuit would subject Weiner to a fishing expedition to dig up irrelevancies.

Not to mention, Breitbart being as clever as he is, and employing his standard MO, has someone else do the dirty work, then publishes it as "breaking news" at his site. That way he has plausible denial. In this case the Operative was apparently Dan Wolfe. And again, rules of discovery would effectively prevent Weiner from filing a lawsuit.

And it appears I was right on the mark that he can't call for a criminal investigation because no law was technically broken; no accounts were actually hacked.

It's remarkable how evidence trumps wild and ignorant speculation.

GB

 

[anduin]

Some time back (maybe months, maybe years), Weiner takes a picture of himself.
A little over two weeks ago, Wolfe acquires the photo, most likely through nefarious means.
Wolfe contacts conservative activists (possibly Breitbart) to pin it on Weiner.
The activist points out that there's nothing to go on with just the photo. It can't be tied to the congressman directly. That could be a picture of anyone.
A plan is hatched to use a yFrog exploit to make it appear as though Weiner sent the photo.
In excitement, Wolfe tips his hand about the future scandal, and posts about it on Twitter.
Two weeks later, the plan is executed.

I actually think this is the likeliest explanation at the moment. To me the yfrog exploit was definitely used, as a seasoned Twitter user I've used it myself to play a couple of pranks in the past, and people have known it for a while.

 

[Neally]

It means, "they didn't behave like I think they should behave in this situation that I've never been in and 100 people will react 100 different ways, meaning I can basically criticize anyone at any time."

Pay attention. Its been pointed out multiple times that the left, right and non-partisan security experts all agree that Weiner has not handled a security breach as it should have been handled. Unless at some point down the road, Weiner comes up with some unexpected revelation that would explain his irrational handling of this, he has justifiably raised suspicions.

No. We do not know how the sludge monster and the failed husband got hold of the tweet, but can assume, given their known level of integrity, that it was by such unethical means that it is probably garbage and Weiner is right to tell people that he does not wish to discuss it.

Except that he has discussed it and made remarkably equivocal statements and handled the response with smoke and mirrors rather than someone concerned about having been hacked.

We have, really, no right to know exactly what happened, because there is no suggestion of criminality or corruption on Weiner's part.

Wow, still stuck on the picture part of the story, when that isn't the real story here.

No. We have a major pervert to blame for the whole thing. That we know as an absolute fact that the sludge monster was out to get Weiner makes anything that passes through his hands absolutely valueless in condemning Weiner in any way.

Amusing how sometimes the left demands an end to speculation, insisting on hard core, verified proof, except when condemning someone on the right...

 

[davefoc]

I don't know what to make of all this.

Your name is Wiener and you send somebody a picture of what looks like it might be a penis hidden by underwear and this is a horrible thing proving the righteousness of the right wing partisans who know that liberals are just a bunch of horny amoral hypocrites? Alas, the right wing partisans may have missed the boat here. The general population tends to favor horny amoral hypocrites so my guess is that Wiener has just been guaranteed reelection because of this scandal.

Alas, after slogging through this thread it appears that he may not have sent the tweet after all. Cripes, hopefully for his sake, his constituents won't take this too hard and they will continue to support him even if he really didn't send the tweet they can still hang their hat on the fact that he was subscribed to an inordinate number of young, sexy women on his twitter account. And maybe not, apparently there is no evidence about the inordinateness of how many young sexy women the congressman has subscribed to on twitter.

ETA: One problem for the congressman, I see here is that this scandal may blow away too soon for him to get maximum bang out of it. Perhaps he might be able to rekindle some of the momentum from this scandal if he wears a cod piece for a few days before the election.

 

[Nova Land]

... Perhaps he might be able to rekindle some of the momentum from this scandal if he wears a cod piece for a few days before the election.

Don't you think that would be a little bit fishy?

 

[davefoc]

Don't you think that would be a little bit fishy?

Good point.

 

[Nova Land]

Speaking of fishy: still another of the folks connected with this incident is smelling a bit off. Here's a profile of Mike Stack, aka goatsred:

The Twitter user who first floated the rumor that a lewd photo scandal was brewing for Representative Anthony Weiner is not your typical conservative avenger...

Mike Stack, a 39-year-old New Jersey resident, is known as “goatsred” in the Twitterverse, where he has helped lead a months-long assault on the New York City politician. Stack was joined at the hip in this pursuit by “patriotusa76,” who gave his name as “Dan Wolfe” and was the online avenger who happened last Friday night to discover the notorious tweet emanating from Weiner’s account.

As TSG reported yesterday, “Dan Wolfe” has conveniently evaporated in the wake of “Weinergate.” In fact, today Wolfe's entire Twitter page was deleted.

But Stack, the other Twitter Twin, remains online. An examination of his background has discovered:

* Stack, who aggressively pushed the story about Weiner’s underpants shot, has worked as a moderator on a pornography web site, and been a regular commenter on several other X-rated sites. Stack describes himself as a “Pervert” on one site...

* New Jersey court records show that Stack was convicted of drunk driving in February 2008. He was previously arrested for domestic assault in July 2004 following a drunken fight that left his girlfriend with bruises on her arm...

* Stack has twice declared bankruptcy during the past 14 years...

* The Internal Revenue Service last year filed a $5907 federal tax lien against Stack.

“The past is the past,” Stack said in an interview today. Describing himself as a “private person,” he added, “there’s no reason my records need to be public.”

Stack also contended that while he sent out the May 5 tweet first hinting that a “big time” Congressman was about to be ensnared in a sex scandal, he claimed that Wolfe actually provided him that information...

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Sorry? Were you laughing at your own severe lack of education?

GB

No, it's more.. I wouldn't use Evergreen -anything- as a primary source when it comes to anything that has a political viewpoint.