Oh Dear: US News Columnist Really, Really Thought Weiner Was Innocent And Thought The Whole Allegation Absurd
Update: Latest Weiner Pic Drops

You know, since the media does not seem to include very many people who have spent any time at all in the company of human beings, or, you know, who have ever had sex, if they want to bring me in as a special consultant on this kind of story, I can be had for a price, and that price is Yoohoo & Smirnoff. Like, six cases of each. More of the Yoohoo because I like it sweet.

Just One Minute gives me the kind designation of Ace of Savants, and notes what he calls the "funniest" take on Weinergate yet.

Well... I think Howard Kurtz has the girl beat -- brevity is the soul of stupid -- but this is pretty good as long-form comedy.

Is she really this dumb, or does she just need us to believe she is, in order to spin this properly?

She begins, as Tom says, by implying "if we don't think a forty-something woman would email suggestive photos to a college guy, we shoudln't think a forty-ish guy would email suggestive photos to a college girl." I'm not sure she implies that. I don't know what the hell she's trying to say initially, except... I think she's trying to play the double-secret reverse sexism card, claiming that if we wouldn't demand such answers of a woman, we shouldn't demand them of a man, either.

But... wouldn't we demand answers of a woman?

Or use Tom's gloss. I have no idea what this woman is talking about, and I suspect that is one thing she and I have in common.

But that's just the set-up, the premise if you will, for the extended comedy riff to follow.

Here’s what we know: Someone tweeted an intimate photo, allegedly of Weiner, in his underpants. Yes, his name is Weiner—and yes, it’s pronounced WEE-ner. Ho, ho, ho. The woman who received the tweet says she does not know him; he says he does not know her. He says someone hacked into his Twitter account to pull a prank. He immediately deleted the tweet as soon as he became aware of it.

Unfortunately, it did not end there. The media demanded to know: Were those his private parts beneath the fabric of the underpants? Weiner—perhaps too honestly—rhetorically shrugged, saying he could not say with "certitude" that it was not a photo of him. That was the congressman’s mistake, although it was an understandable one in our YouTube, tweet-crazy, cell phone camera-stalking world. He should have paused, displaying an appropriately appalled face, and told the voyeurs--oops, I mean, media representatives--that it was none of anyone’s damn business whether he or anyone close to him had taken an intimate photo of him. But he frankly held open the possibility that someone had done so, and then the media went into overdrive.

...

Weiner’s used to the jokes about his name, undoubtedly having heard them since the sixth grade. As he pointed out, maybe if his name were "hamburger," the photo might have been different. He’s joked quite hilariously himself about his moniker, rhetorically asking Speaker John Boehner (who pronounces his name BAY-nor) why he doesn’t just embrace the name, and call himself BOH-ner. After all, Weiner said in a very amusing address at a press dinner, he doesn’t try to pass himself off as WAY-ner.

...

But the behavior of much of the media toward Weiner is inexcusable. If he harassed a woman by sending her an inappropriate photo, that is indeed worth looking into. But no one, including the woman in question, has alleged such a thing, and it’s doubtful someone as savvy as Weiner would do something so supremely stupid, anyway. Weiner has declared himself a victim of Twitter invasion, and certainly, he’s a victim of an outrageous invasion of privacy. If someone (His wife? An old girlfriend? Himself?) took a photo of him in his skivvies, that’s his private business. And if a woman had been violated in such a way, her underwear photo sent to a Twitter follower, she would rightly be afforded sympathy, accompanied by outrage for the person who humiliated her. Weiner deserves the same consideration.

No matter how he pronounces his name.

She's buying into the "This only happened to me because I have a silly name people make jokes about" defense.

Yes, I understand why she should buy into that; that was always the strongest of all his many strong defenses.

This too-funny-for-Cracked laughaganza was published June 2nd, which, if I can subtract properly (and I probably can't, I always get this wrong) was last Wednesday, after our Presentative Representative had given several godawful interviews in which he all but admitted the picture was of his dingus. Update: I'm told it was Thursday. See? I got it wrong, precisely as predicted.

But this is your media. True believers, diagnosable cretins, hacks, flacks, and dedicated Kos readers.

It's called "The Scoreboard." This is how we keep track. Your analysis, versus that of your "clear inferiors."

Just a thought: Maybe if you fucking idiots cut a half hour out of your Kos, HuffPo, Gawker and Wonkette reading time to read conservative media or blogs, maybe you'd know some additional facts, and maybe you'd be familiar with some analysis that casts doubt on the "smoking gun" proofs at Kos and LGF.

Just a thought. Since you're supposedly giving us a thoughtful take and you're sort of paid to read stuff. Since you're paid to read stuff, maybe skip Perez Hilton once in a while and read a conservative blog.

Latest Pic: Apparently using a witty "pussy" double-entendre when photographing himself with cats.

It looks like gay porn. Really, really, really bad gay porn.

Since this is now an official WeinerGate post, I'm adding the obligatory Elvis song, in addition to the Ramones song.

See, I could do the Ramones song, because this didn't start as a pure Weiner post, but a related post. But now it's both, so I have to put in Elvis.

CNN: Hey, Did The Media Go Overboard in Reporting the Weiner Story? Yeah, yeah, totally overboard.

Nothing here! 'Twas always obvious. Dry hole. Nothing to report. Nothing to see here, folks, move along, move along.

posted by Ace at 09:44 AM

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