Update below
The only people who matter in Weinergate -- New York voters -- have spoken. Their verdict?
So what?
An informal poll on Weinergate published Saturday in The Daily Beast asked 100 New Yorkers -- including some in Rep. Weiner's district -- what they thought of it. The poll found most of the people asked said they didn't care about it one way or another, haven't changed their opinion of Weiner, would vote for him again, don't think he sent the picture, and that it isn't of him.
The bottom line? Anthony Weiner (D-NY) may have botched the media strategy and embarrassed himself hugely; but he's still in Congress, he isn't going anyplace and, assuming he's the same guy he was before this attempt was made on his political life, he'll live to fight another day.
And when the time comes, I'm guessing the people who attacked him, and the people behind it, can expect something in return. After all; Anthony Weiner is from Brooklyn.
At this point, the details of this manufactured scandal, or Rep. Weiner's missteps handling it, don't really need much repeating. We all know somebody hacked into his Twitter account and sent a link to a picture of some guy's underpants to a Seattle student; that Andrew Breitbart put it on his web site, took it right down, and proceeded to flog the story; and that the media treated this sliming like the assassination of Lincoln -- probably because it was timed for a Memorial Day weekend, when there was nothing else to report. People paying attention -- and who could look away -- know that the more Weiner talked about it, the worse it got for him.
What's gone largely unremarked is that the tactics used against Rep. Weiner are the ones at the top of the Right Wing toolkit. At a minimum, the Right Wing displays a fondness for tactics, and a willingness to stoop, that I think have no place in the public sphere.
Politics may not be beanbag, and America's witnessed nasty politics since the election of 1800; but to the extent there a direct line between the infamous Willie Horton ad for Bush the Elder in 1988 and the attack on Rep. Weiner, that line has been going downhill at 45 degrees.
How much lower it can go is beyond me, but I have confidence in the Right Wing; they'll find a way. After all, they believe the ends justify the means, even though in politics, there are no ends -- only means. And if a politician uses means like the ones thrown at Rep. Weiner, people willing to vote for him or her need to ask; if this is what they're made of, what'll they do to the country?
The Right Wing seems addicted to conducting business at gunpoint, with the safety off and the barrel in their target's ear -- most recently, in the country's ear. Sure, all politics and much of business is conducted at gunpoint. Extortion and blackmail are all part of it. And every negotiation has an "or" in it.
But usually, people know the guns are there; they don't need to be waved about. And people who don't care how they get somebody, and don't care how much collateral damage they cause doing it, are like terrorists willing to blow up a loaded airliner to kill one man.
But since the Right Wing we've come to know is full of fronts for the John Birch Society -- the two main figures behind it are Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers, all sons of JBS founders -- maybe we shouldn't be surprised.
After all, in the 1970s the JBS, through its future chairman, Dr. Larry McDonald, promoted and profited from the laetrile fraud. Treating patients with laetrile was murder and you can't tell me McDonald, an internist, didn't know it.
Laetrile, for those of you who don't know, was pushed as a miracle cure for cancer. But it was made from apricot pits and full of cyanide. Cyanide attacks the central nervous system. So people "treated" with laetrile felt better because they didn't feel the cancer. Then they died. And then the people behind it all said they could have saved their victims, if only they'd come to them earlier.
William F. Buckley, Jr. and his allies marginalized the JBS in the 1960s. But unlike its victims, it didn't die. Fifty years later, the sons of people willing to finance their politics with murder are a huge influence on the Republican Party.
So are we amazed to find their operatives are perfectly willing to make penis jokes if they think it'll help them smear their enemies? Out an undercover CIA agent to punish her husband? Or risk provoking a global depression by defaulting on the national debt to get their way?
The question is more like what have they been doing we don't know about yet.
Update: Well, I was wrong to say Rep. Weiner was innocent and that the Right Wing was using baseless allegations to destroy him.
In today's political world, these tactics have unfortunately become much the norm, and since I find them distasteful and think they have no place in the public sphere, I was willing to defend a man I admired against something few people would call an admirable journalistic exercise -- factual or not.
I wrote based on the facts as I knew them at the time, and based both on the fact that no one would call Mr. Breitbart a half-hearted advocate of his political opinions, and that Rep. Weiner's habit of taking on Republicans head on gave me and so many others some satisfaction.
However, I still find this entire way of conducting the People's business to be a disservice to the nation, and I hope I always will. As for everything else I said, including that based on past and current performance, I find such behavior on the Right to be unsurprising; Well, I stand by it, and I hope I always will stand by it.
Visit me at my web site, Reinbach's Observer
That said, Rep. Weiner probably realizes that he's a liability to his party in the 2012 election, and that his best interests lie in resigning so he doesn't figure in every Republican and Tea Party speech between now and election day. It's a shame. If women are right and all men are dogs, nobody should be surprised if they sniff around. But the Right will squeeze this dry.
Too bad, too. Rep. Weiner has been an effective voice for progressives, and embodied what a lot of Deomcrats would like to see in the Oval Office. That, and the fact he's been on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from ruling on the Health Care bill like a cheap suit, is probably why they went all out on this. Says more about them than Rep. Weiner, if you ask me.
Apparently he was. His devoid of facts and common sense opinion was actually common for a lot of liberal journalists and bloggers. I saw more than one article penned with a variation of the definitive statement " We all know somebody hacked into his Twitter account and sent a link to a picture of some guy's underpants to a Seattle student..." I saw it in another article written as 'it's no longer reasonable to think that Weiner wasn't hacked.'
Why? All of the evidence except your desires pointed in the other direction. He claimed he was hacked and because you wanted to believe it, it's something we all should have taken as fact. Despite all of the other holes in his story and absurd behavior and a picture itself...you choose to use confirmation bias and end the story righ there.
That is why the liberal media is losing all credibility. They frame events in a way that, despite the evidence, you are not reasonable if you don't believe what they are telling you.
You don't get a pass on this Reinbach, you didn't write based on the facts as you had them. You choose to report on the elements of the story as you wished them to be true.
Busy day! You were dead wrong on it being the last word on Weiner and if you think it is now you will again be sadly mistaken. I think you need to suck up and admit Breitbart was right on this. I'm not a huge fan of his but he got hold of a legit story and outed a liar. Why don't you put down some of your venom and admit he did a pretty good job while being hounded by both Weiner and the rest of the press.
You look pretty bad here.
But every cloud does have a silver lining. I'm not sure if Lee was forced out or if he did it on his own volition. But that doesn't matter; Lee's resignation was a win-win for the Republicans and conservatives. Sure, Lee's resignation ultimately cost the Republicans a seat in Congress, but that's a far lower price to pay than months upon months of hearings and continuing embarrassment to conservatives, the party, and Congress itself. But for Republicans, it looks like Weiner will be the gift that keeps on giving. It appears he's bent on trying to hold onto his job while the vast majority of Americans will have no problem seeing through any progressive attempts to justify his behavior as "no big deal". And as evidenced by the author of this blog, the tome of justification and minification of of Weiner%u2019s actions has already begun.
Admit your bias! If Breitbart was presenting news about a conservative person, you would say that he was just doing his job!
What did Breitbart stoop to? Stating the truth? That's what you really don't like, isn't it - admitting that Weiner is a hypocrite?
What's this about ends justifying the means? What means - presenting the truth? OOOOHHH - how scary!
Your third point - you're just saying the same thing over and over again. You don't agree with the conservative point of view, and you're willing to put your hands over your ears and pretend it's not important because YOU believe the ends justify the means - you don't care what means the liberals take to get where you want to be.
I wish you would just be honest about it!
The GOP doesn't force a default on the debt. The debt forces a default itself by being increased nearly 40% in just over two years by incompetent management.
But, hey, when you get beat by the facts in one case you might as well hide behind a political position to cover yourself. You aren Weiner are very much alike.
What you've managed to avoid comenting on are my main points, so I'll repeat them here:
1."...the tactics used against Rep. Weiner are the ones at the top of the Right Wing toolkit. At a minimum, the Right Wing displays a fondness for tactics, and a willingness to stoop, that I think have no place in the public sphere."
2. "...they believe the ends justify the means, even though in politics, there are no ends -- only means. And if a politician uses means like the ones thrown at Rep. Weiner, people willing to vote for him or her need to ask; if this is what they're made of, what'll they do to the country?
3. "The Right Wing seems addicted to conducting business at gunpoint, with the safety off and the barrel in their target's ear -- most recently, in the country's ear."
I don't understand why you're not ashamed of yourselves. You may now jeer at me all you want; a sticks and stones thing comes to mind.
Robert Bork was the man who fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox for Richard Nixon during Watergate after two more honorable men, who believed in the Constitution, resigned rather than interfere with the rule of law. Clarence Thomas admitted 7 years of perjury connected to his financial disclosure forms.These were serious offenses against the idea of the American Republic and their oath of office. Bork was rightly denied the Supreme Court bench and Thomas in my opinion should be impeached and disbarred.
Lee, a married man who made a point of how moral he is, was trolling for sex on Craigslist and claimed he was single. He was forced out of office by his Republican colleagues. I never wrote about it or even thought it was worth anybody's attention--just as I still believe the Weiner thing deserved no attention. It's private behavior unconnected to their duties or oaths.
Anthony Weiner flirted electronically with some girls he never met [I know you don't believe that, but I'm not of your ilk], and while he lied about it at first, he also manned up and confessed to it before the country, and took all questions. None of the men above did anything like that.
I just don't see any equivalence. I'm sure you disagree.
JUST HOW BIG IS IT ?
remember Teddy said speak softly and carry a BIG stick,
We all know somebody hacked into his Twitter account ??
How much lower it can go??
BTW, do you mean your "last word" because, there's more to come on this story, mark it down.
/no, not really