Tag: Anthony Weiner

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Accountability folly national politics & policies

Weiner’s Place in History

Anthony Weiner, sexting, twitter, folly, sex, scandal, Clinton, election, Huma Abedin

As if to finalize the Great Derailment of 2016, disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner pleaded guilty in federal court to felony sexting: transferring obscene materials to a 15-​year-​old girl.

Prosecutors are asking he serve 21 to 27 months in federal prison, register as a sex offender and continue mental health therapy.

Also Friday, Huma Abedin, Weiner’s long-​suffering wife, quietly filed an “Anonymous v. Anonymous” petition for divorce. 

Though, apparently, not anonymously enough.

Personal train-​wreck? Sure. But as I wrote yesterday at Townhall, because it so deeply affected last year’s presidential contest, the wreck is also very public.

Back in 2011, Anthony Weiner made Andrew Breitbart a hero, propelling Breitbart​.com into the limelight. Weiner had tweeted a picture of his underwear-​clad crotch to a woman … who was not his wife. Though quickly deleted from his Twitter account, a screenshot was shared with Breitbart, who ran with the story.

Weiner claimed a hack, challenging Breitbart’s credibility. This spurred Andrew Breitbart to commandeer a news conference called by Weiner — with more evidence to share. Soon, Rep. Weiner admitted his bad behavior and officially resigned his congressional seat.

Fast-​forward to 2016, with wife Huma Abedin busy helping Hillary Clinton run for president. Weiner again becomes the subject of a sexting scandal — this time with an underage North Carolina girl. The FBI investigates, seizes Weiner’s laptop and discovers emails on it from Hillary Clinton to his wife, Huma. Then-​FBI Director James Comey reopened his investigation of Hillary’s emails just ten days before Election Day. 

Upshot? Trump is the 45th U.S. President, with Breitbart​.com Editor Steve Bannon as key advisor.

Thanks to Weiner.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo of “Anthony Weiner cut-​out by the port-​a-​potties” by Katjusa Cisar on Flickr

 

Categories
folly media and media people

A Brief Against Weiner

Congressman Anthony Weiner: Insert joke here.

Perhaps because I pronounced his name as “whiner” rather than “wiener,” I didn’t titter as much as the rest of America did upon the Twitter release of his notorious underpants photo.

Weiner stonewalled for as long as he could. Was the photo in question of his own dear, downstairs corporality? He couldn’t “say with certitude.”

Yesterday’s overdue confession that he’d fouled up a direct message on Twitter, sending it publicly, instead — and then lied about it — confirmed nearly everybody’s suspicions. (Everyone it seems except too many slanted lame-​stream media folks, who instead attacked the now magnificently vindicated Andrew Breitbart.) Weiner admits to having sent inappropriate messages and photos to attractive, younger women.

But, alas, Weiner’s mea culpa was accompanied by his insistence that he would not resign.

For lying about his accounts being “hacked” — and thus cry-​wolfishly raising national security issues — and for proving himself an utter idiot at a simple messaging system, he should. That is, he should resign for falsely reporting a crime (and it is a crime to hack someone else’s online accounts), and for utter, bumbling incompetence.

Demonstrating humiliating incompetence at Twitter should remain a prerogative of private citizens, not politicians.

And it’s not as if he couldn’t land on his, er, feet. He could join one of the newer news comment shows, become Eliot Spitzer’s new partner on, perhaps, Weiner/​Spitzer.

It has a ring to it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.