Game Changer? Patterico Teases Evidence That Weiner May Have Had Friendly Frivolities With Frivolous Friends Who Weren't Necessarily of Frivolously Legal Age
Update: I Have A Good Guess What Patterico Might Be Talking About

Just a tease.

Does he have the goods? I don't know, but 1, he's careful, and 2, he's usually not a big smack-talker, and 3, right now, he's cocky as all hell.

He says his evidence has something to do with this transcript of chats with Sleepless in Las Vegas.

As he's referencing a transcript with someone else, I can only surmise his evidence is of the inferential variety, rather than the direct or conclusive type.

Reliable Sources? A good question that I've been @-ing Howard Kurtz about.

When Howard Kurtz announced, dismissively, to all the "twerps" who were asking why he wasn't covering the Weiner matter, that the evidence appeared "faked," where did he get this idea?

It appears that he got that idea from the Daily Kos. Wait, did I say the Daily Kos? No, Kos actually exercises some editorial control over the Daily Kos.

Howard Kurtz appears to have gotten it from a Daily Kos Diarist. You know, one of those people who frequently posts embarrassing anti-Semetic, assassination-porn, or Truther crap. The stuff that Kos routinely dismisses as stuff that shouldn't be held against him, as he could not possibly monitor all the thousands of people he allows to post on his site to put advertising money into his pocket.

That's where Kurtz appears to have gotten this. That's what the evidence suggests.

Did he?

I don't know, because I, and others, keep asking him, but he refuses to answer us "twerps."

It would be interesting to know, wouldn't it?, that the media, which always sonorously pronounces upon its own "news judgment," includes as part of its texture of background information crap they read on their blog-faves HuffPo, FireDogLake, and of course, Daily Kos "Diaries."

Wouldn't it? Shouldn't the public know that, among the other inputs into this vaunted "news judgment" I hear so terribly much about, journalists' worldviews are shaped by a stead diet of political pornography they read on left-of-the-left hyperpartisan "Internet Detective" blogs?

I've asked Kurtz. So have others. So again I must say:

Comment was sought from Howard Kurtz, but he did not respond before the time of this article's publication.

My Guess: Patterico drops the baiting line:

It will become relevant when Part 2 comes along.

This, I promise you. Because we superheroes . . . that’s just how we roll.

In the transcript with Sleepless in Las Vegas, Weiner says, about his efforts to destroy the Tea Party before the 2010 elections (well done, Champ):

[Sleepless in Las Vegas:] hi honey! computer's back up…what's up with you? busy saving my country rom this f***in tea baggers?

[Super Weiner:] Yep. Cape. Tights. Looking for my sidekick

So what's my guess? My guess is that one of the underage girls remarked upon Weiner having a cape and tights, or being a sidekick, or being Robin, or some other superhero reference, which indicates:

1. He was lying when he said he had no contact with them apart from a "Hey thanks for following see AnthonyWeiner.com."

2. His PR team would in this case have gotten to the girls and gotten them, and their parents, to put out a statement that concealed the fact that Weiner was in fact engaging in personal -- not necessarily sexual, but personal, friendly, and familiar -- conversations with girls way too young to be DMing privately at all, whether about politics or Justin Bieber or whatever the hell one talks to girls young enough to be your daughters' younger cousins about.

That's my guess.

If this guess is right, then Patterico's evidence is inferential (as I already surmised), but suggestive. We would know, if this were true, that the cover story offered to us is false.

What lies behind the cover story? We wouldn't know that, yet. But we'd know the cover story was false.

For legal purposes -- and also because it's true -- I have to remind people again that this is a guess based upon what I see in Patterico's post, and the transcript he references.

Clarification: My cutesy nicknaming (partly just to not publicize the names of these collateral damage victims) is causing confusion.

"Sleepless in Las Vegas" refers to the 40-year-old (or roundabouts) Blackjack Dealer. I won't say her name; it's out there enough. This transcript presented here is not with an underage girl, but a full adult.

It is my guess, though, that Patterico has found the underage girls dropping superhero references in regard to him, suggesting he was so taken with this Superhero conceit he shared it with some of his other Frivolous Friends, in private DMs, of course.

As I say, there's nothing criminal or blameworthy in dropping superhero references. However, that would seem to indicate that Weiner's conversations with them were not, in fact, arms-length or automated "Thank you please see AnthonyWeiner.com," but actual conversations.

And what the hell is a 46 year old man doing speaking privately to a 16 year old girl? What the hell could they possibly have to talk about?

The thing itself is wildly inappropriate, even if we assumed that nothing beyond this thing occurred.

What 46 year old men talk to schoolgirls privately? I'm hearing a discordant, jarring fanfare here, like the flute solo in Aqualung.

I don't have to think the girls themselves did anything wrong to recognize that anything a 46-year-old man wanted to say to a young girl should be said publicly. "Thanks for your support!" "Hey, great to have young people on the team!" That sort of thing.

Anything you could, ethically and morally, say to a young girl, with good intent, should be the sort of thing you say publicly.

You know what happens if I go to a friends' house and then excuse myself to chat with a 16 year old daughter alone for a half hour or hour?

Nothing good, I'll tell you that.

By the Way: I don't quote any of the actual sexts and stuff because I consider it sort of irrelevant.

It's sex talk. What are people expecting it to say? It's going to say dirty stuff. That's the point of it.

I don't think there's anything newsworthy in Radar's details of it, except to establish it did in fact happen.

But where there is some genuine hypocrisy on the part of the media is people posting this stuff for giggles, when in fact I bet you precisely similar texts can be found on the phones of half of the people in the media. Or the internet. Or... in shopping malls.

This part of it just seems to me to be mortification for the sake of mortification.

Not to be King Pill of Buzzkill Mountain or anything, but this stuff is really relevant only to prove the fact of the thing.

It's not even super-funny. You know what's genuinely super-funny? Major Content Warning for Pat O'Brien's ludicrously funny voicemails.

You have to pretend to be into Molly, though.

Also... This transcript is probably telling. Below, video of Anthony Weiner giving a speech about inter-office sexual harassment, from last Christmas. At :38.

posted by Ace at 09:32 AM

| Access Comments