Oh Boy: Drama Alert

The whole post-WeinerGate drama may finally be ending.

A hot chick and a dog, to keep your patience with this convoluted story.
This hot chick is actually part of this story. Sort of.
Her picture was lifted to use as a fake picture on a Twitter account.

More at Verum Serum.

All Right, A Recap: Before the dic-pic, two accounts, purportedly created by teenagers, attempted to attract the attention of Weiner. He wound up following them both, and they followed him.

When you heard allusions to Weiner following underage girls, these were two of the girls meant. (A third girl, who we call "Ethel," is quite real and is 17. The cops visited her home two weeks ago. She is not part of this Betty and Veronica thing at all.)

We have called these two "Betty" and "Veronica" to protect their identities, as they are minors.

However, it is now clear they are not minors, or, if they're minors, they're at least not the minors they say they are. They're not real, they're sockpuppets. What similarities the supposed account-holders might have with their online personas is not known. Probably almost none.

The accounts had the names "Nikki Reid" and "Marienela Alecea" or something... something Spanish. I don't know. It's all gibberish to me.

Now, these accounts seemed to be fans of Weiner. However, they also offered information -- vague stuff -- the #bornfree crew, dirt on Weiner, but they never revealed the actual dirt. (To the best of my limited knowledge.)

Post dic-pic, they tried to push claims on Breitbart, too. But Breitbart, for whatever reason, declined to use their claims. He couldn't verify it and besides he didn't need it.

Now, several days later, the people running these accounts agree to talk to Tommy Christopher. They claim that Weiner has never been anything but a gentleman, and the #bornfree crew are big meanies who harass them, and, improbably, that Andrew Breitbart and Dana Loech are the real bad guys here because they attempted to induce the girls to lie and claim that... Weiner was attempting to recruit them for an underage prostitution ring.

The article, with its retraction/correction update, is here.

Although I've gotten into spats with Lee Stranahan on Twitter, he has been dogged in questioning Christopher's reporting, doubting the girls where who they say they were (Content Warning for Profanity-Filled Drama As Christopher Curses at Stranahan for Calling Him Out Publicly).

Tommy Christopher told people that charge on the phone (he never wrote it in a report) and now says that wasn't really the charge, but apparently something at that level of absurdity.

In other words, the accounts sure seemed to be on Team Weiner-- defending him and maybe trying to push a false story on the #bornfree crew, and then Breitbart, to embarrass the right.

Now, flash forward to last Friday. A NYT reporter named Jen Preston checks the drivers licences that the girls faxed to Tommy Christopher to confirm their IDs and discovers they are fraudulent.

Jen Preston says in her article the accounts were created to dig dirt on Weiner, and strongly implies they are part of a right-wing covert action sting against Weiner.

Further, Gennette Cordova has chatted with these accounts. We're not sure of what was said. But she says now (quoted by Jen Preston) that she quickly guessed the accounts were fake and warned Weiner to not communicate with them.

Now, this is interesting to people like me, because at the current moment Jen Preston seems to be going for the "rightwing operative" angle. Not that there's anything wrong with that, necessarily, but I really don't feel like hearing the left whine about Dirty Tricks for twenty fucking years, either.

On the other hand, some people believe the fake accounts were actually created as a leftwing operation to punk #bornfree/Breitbart.

As it is likely the creator of at least one of the accounts (maybe both) will soon be exposed by someone, we should know the answers here soon.

Plus, the father of the girl who created one account -- I guess he's the father, or something, who knows, we don't know who these people are -- is raging against Gennette Cordova for, I'm guessing, throwing his daughter under the NYT bus, and threatens to release emails she sent to him and his daughter. I guess. I don't know because I just heard about the "father's" anger. He's been a mysterious figure throughout this and his Twitter account has always been locked (only people he permits to see it can see it). I have no idea what he's saying, but I guess he's talking to people.

Anyway, it's drama, and it should all be over soon.

My speculation that "someone like Gennette" could be behind the sockpuppets was wrong, I'm pretty sure. At least, it certainly doesn't seem to be someone exactly like Gennette! It's not her.

We'll see if it turns out to be someone like her or not.

Resolved Questions:

* The "girls" here appear to be a complete fiction.

Unresolved Questions:

* What was the motivation of the persons behind the sockpuppets -- rightwing, leftwing, other? To Get Weiner? To Get Bornfree? Gossip? Attention? Getting a juicy story for publication in the media?

* Are Gennette's public representations accurate?

* Jen Preston has been greasing the hell out of her source Gennette, even quoting her in her recent article exposing the "girls" as fake. Is Jen Preston wise to have relied on Gennette? Was Gennette straight with her, or did she lead Jen Preston down a crooked path? Will she soon have to do a Tommy Christopher Walk-Back?

* Does any of this have anything to do with Stranahan's White Whale -- PatriotUSA76? Or is that still just what it seemed to be?

A Question That Seems Resolved:

* None of this actually involves the dic-pic, or the Meghan Broussard dic-pics. Or, so it seems. Weiner confessed to the dic-pic. I suppose it still remains possible that the sockpuppets were created by someone who had heard Meghan Broussard's tale and, knowing about that, tried to catch Weiner. But it must be remembered that even if they did try to catch Weiner -- they failed. None of this actually has anything to do with Weiner's guilt.

It's really just about the weird, cloak-and-dagger games partisans play on the internet.

posted by Ace at 11:50 PM

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