Take a drink for each occurrence of the word "Democrat"...
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted to posting lewd photos of himself on Twitter at a Monday afternoon press conference.
While addressing the media at the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Weiner made the following statement: “Last Friday night I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted it to Twitter, I panicked, I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.”
“I am so sorry to have disrupted her life in this way. To be clear, the picture was of me and I sent it. I am deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my wife Huma and our family, and my constituents, my friends, supporters and staff. In addition over the past few years I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, email, and occasionally on the phone with women I have met online. I have exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years. For the most part, these communications took place before my marriage, though some have sadly took place after. To be clear, I have never met any of these women or have had any physical relationships at any time.”
Weiner also said he would not resign and that he did not believe that he did anything that broke the law.
Via Drudge, where you can count on lots more in coming days.
Update: Andrew Breitbart vindicated.
h/t Chairman Kaga
He'll resign, then sign a multi-million dollar contract to be a CNN commentator, like Spitzer.
The Weiner claims they were all adults, yet, admits he doesn't know how old they were.
Like John Edwards, the MSM was slow to pursue this(no ideological bias here!).
It should be pointed out that Chris Lee, a Republican, who put his body out there(NOT his schlong, though) had to resign.
What a dick!
And magically, two days after this happens, the same thing occurs to George Lepp. Story broken by one Warren Kinsella. Who happens to be at or near the PC conference.
A real loss for the Democrats.
A nasty attack dog who made too many enemies.
Buh-bye!
Breitbart and conservative new media - 1
MSM - 0
Yeah, pics of his erection to girls less than half his age. Great "joke". Ha ha frackin' ha. And he's been lying (not the word he used) like a politician from minute one.
I bet he won't have to resign; it's not like he's a Republican.
(Assumng that he didn't have a "physical relationship" with the 21-year-old in Seattle - not that I don't trust his word or anything - then sending her x-rated pictures is clearly sexual harassment and could be construed as an offer of access [she's a journalism student] in exchange for s*x. I'd have to re-skim the little article he got her to write up a few days ago to cover him, but I'm reasonably sure she told flat-out lies, something about a group of guys who were trying to "punk" her, obviously at his request. Which won't do much for her future credibility. What a pig the man is.)
"I panicked, I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake"
Yep, just the kind of person that Americans can count on to make the tough decisions and be accountable.
Many have wondered how Weiner could be so stupid.
Its not a question of stupid, its a question of having no fear of getting caught - or if he did that the story would be ignored or buried, and if that did not work, that the spin would be to attack the messenger, and if that failed, to issue a tearful apology.
There are so many steps for a Dem to go through before actually having to face the music, that they have little fear of repercussions.
John Edwards affair was common knowledge. Spitzer was well recongnized by the women he had sex with, Clinton was a serial womanizer, Schwarzennegers infidelities came as no surprise to anyone (lets be serious here the guys a Democrat). But the media never made a peep.
Breitbart gives it to the MSM at Weiner's conference:
http://www.mrctv.org/videos/andrew-breitbart-owns-msm-weiners-press-conference
NO, of course, he won't resign.
That would be the honourable thing to do.
That's not in his genes.
Moreover we would no longer be able to hear his mindless rants against "millionaires and billionaires".
It's this simple: any man, single or married, with poor enough judgment to e-mail and/or tweet lewd pix of himself to strangers doesn't qualify to be a US Congressman. Period.
I believe it was Weiner who made dark suggestions about the gold advertising on Beck. Beck responded by putting up a site called "Weiner Watch". Ironic, what?
We are told repeatedly by those lacking morals that these private matters do not affect how a politician does his job.
In one way, yes. In another way, no.
It has been my experience in business that those lacking morals can and often do just as good work as other people. However, for those men (and women) whom I have perceived as most likely to be lacking in morals in the sexual area, they have also been the least likely people that I can trust in any type of business dealings. It makes sense. The person who will lie about things like that to his wife (or husband) will not have any limits to restrain his lying in any other area of life. Further, a person pursuing selfish interests or out-of-bounds interests in the sexual domain will play by the same rules (or lack thereof) in the other domains. I.E. such a person is more likely to cheat, swindle, embezzle, or outright steal from anybody with whom he has business dealings than someone who is constrained by the self-discipline that accompanies a ply-by-the-rules attitude.
Virtue does still count.
Take a drink for each occurrence of the word "Democrat"... Not one drink for me today!
Well, maybe he is a Democrat, but the incident could happen to anybody. I kind of feel sorry for him. To err is human, is it not?
er,
play-by-the-rules attitude.
I'm with Brent Weston...that has been my experience as well.
Although I don't consider myself a paragon of virtue....these types do allow me to hold myself with a bit more pride.....that's not sayin much is it?
"Well, maybe he is a Democrat, but the incident could happen to anybody."
I've made it this far in life without taking any pictures of my junk. Let alone emailing the pic's around to strangers. You really have to have serious judgement problems to be doing this kind of thing while you're running for public office. Unless of course your name is Kennedy.
CTV news (TV) covered the John Edwards story this weekend... not a peep on what party he represented.
The truth outs as usual. When will these guys ever figue out. Someone is always watching or listening. This goes for he Truck driver as well as the politician.
JMO
I like how they always use the abbreviation for Representative. Rep. so it could be read as Republican.
and I also have made it thus far in life with no pictures of my nether parts or even my underwear
Another politician with adolescent sexual tastes convinced that he is above both the law and bourgeois notions of common decency.
What a surprise.
Not only is the guy an ass-hat, but he has at least two places to hang it.
He is a Lawyer! What lying??? Tomorrow he will deny everything....
Poor Nancy is so unhappy..he was a "little" too progressive for NYC... His new wife made fun of the little Weiner....
LindaL: "Well, maybe he is a Democrat, but the incident could happen to anybody. I kind of feel sorry for him. To err is human, is it not?"
What $ FKA gord said -- if I was a guy.
LindaL, Weiner's married for crying out loud and he admits that "over the past few years I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, email, and occasionally on the phone with women I have met online." He also said he "exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years" but that "most" of the communications took place before his marriage, even though he admitted some took place afterward [emphasis mine]. He married Huma Abedin, a longtime personal aide of Hillary Clinton, on July 10, 2010.
I don't feel sorry for him. I think he's a scumbag.
The difference between Lee(R) and Weiner(D) is that Lee resigned because his chance for election for what he did as a Republican was a political death sentence. Weiner will probably easily win the 2012 election running as a Democrat. It appears that there is no such thing as a politically-damaging sex scandal to a Democrat. Case in point....look at how highly regarded Bill Clinton was and continues to be by his(D) followers.
Didn't some Republican congressman resign for posting a nude photo (waist up) on facebook - but I guess as a Republican he deserved that. Hypocrites.
LindaL the divinely forgiving - "Well, maybe he is a Democrat, but the incident could happen to anybody. I kind of feel sorry for him. To err is human, is it not?"
This isn't some harmless flirtation or even affair, about which sort of thing I could(n't) generally care less. Weiner's been sending out pictures of his erect pen*s in ugly underwear to really young girls; he's copping to junk on Facebook and email that I don't even want to know about (well, I kinda do); he has been lying his skinny ass off for like a week now. He has quite possibly seriously damaged the future career prospects of a girl who's been covering for him. He has spent his career as an ultra-partisan scumbag who acts like a clown, self-righteousness incarnate; Google his name on youtube and you'll see what I mean. His marriage, to a "top aide" of Hilary Clinton, was touted as a very big deal.
Republicans have to resign for posting shirtless pics on Craigslist.
This couldn't happen to "anybody"; who here thinks anything resembling this might ever happen to them?
Ah-mo do it for the second time this week: I call "Concern Troll" on LindaL.
Karma's a bitch, and I'm enjoying a healthy does of schadenfreude this afternoon. Couldn't happen to a more deserving politician than the sleazy Wiener.
Psychopathic personalities often take things over the top ten fall hard. They feel impervious to prosecution or accountability ... that's what makes them psychopathic.
This could not have happened to a more deserving POS.
The way he talked down to conservative women .... Michelle Bachmann for instance ....
To quote a popular burger franchise's slogan .. "I'm lovin' It"
[deleted - off topic. ED]
Charles Johnson over at Little Green Goofballs,
KOS and Huffapost created a huge internet shit sandwich defending this little wiener dushe-bag.
How does it taste boys?
Just finished watching the item covered on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and the idiot interviewed about it said that "at base" Weiner's weiner on Twitter is basically a story about "social media."
Yeah, right. Sure. If you say so.
Anthony Weiner is a protected Dem: On his own, he's a golden boy in the Democratic Party -- and he's married to a former personal aide to Hillary Clinton whose husband knew how to oil his way around a ... well, never mind.
'Guess that means Weiner for NYC's next mayor. He'll get votes, like Jacko did in Quebec, for his je-ne-sais-quoi savoir faire.
Hmm. What bothers me is not his photos; I don't care; not his online relations; I don't care.
What bothers me is the fact that he, as a public figure, a politician, lied - to the media, to the electorate.
That is, he claimed, with certainty that not merely the pictures weren't of him, but that he had never sent them..and claimed that he was a VICTIM. I repeat: a victim. He claimed that he was 'hacked'.
He then went on that hacking was extremely common and that he concluded that this is how the picture got out. Furthermore, he claimed further status as a Victim, that this unnamed hacker was making fun of his name.
It's the blatant lies that bother me. To call in CNN and FOX to his office, to definitely tell them that he hadn't sent any photos, that he was the victim of a hacker...
batb - 'Guess that means Weiner for NYC's next mayor.
Honestly, I wouldn't doubt it. For all his faults, Giuliani was magnificent on 9/11. Would Bloomberg be magnificent, or this... sad sleazy muppet, (I dunno what to call him)?
Breitbart gives me a thrill up my leg....!
MSNBC's Chris Matthews believes Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife may be "partly responsible" for his sexual misconduct because the Congressman said she was aware of his behavior before they were married. Transcript below:
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: "Yeah, but he says his wife knew. He laid it out on her."
JOHN FEEHERY, Republican strategist: "Which is a terrible, terrible mistake."
MATTHEWS: "Well, maybe she's partly responsible if she knew about it?"
Black Mamba, how about a sad sleazy dick?
So what's up with the video? "Video not found or access denied ..."
Victor Davis Hanson has one of his excellent columns on this:
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-collapse-of-a-rotten-edifice-2/
"Nemesis is always hot on the trail of hubris, across time and space, and the goddess has been particularly busy in destroying the carefully crafted images of Bono, John Edwards, Timothy Geithner, Al Gore, Eliot Spitzer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Anthony Weiner, and a host of others. What do their tax hypocrisies, sexual indulgences, and aristocratic socialist lifestyles all have in common?
Collectively, they represent a self-appointed or elected global elite that oversees, lectures about — in sanctimonious fashion — the ethical responsibilities of the redistributive state"
All of them, regardless of what they did, were hypocrites. Liars. Constant, constant lying to not just family but to the media and the electorate.
That's what bothers me: the arrogance of their sanctimonious elitism - and their lies.
Another perspective:
"He should not have sent the lewd photo of himself in his underwear, but everyone makes mistakes," said Faheem Abdus-Shakur, a transgender blogger who writes on sexual politics and who also goes by the name Michelle. "But barring what had happened to him recently, Weiner is a stand-up guy, he is progressive and has an interest in gay issues. And he came clean about what he did."
"10. buckets
The members of the “reality-based” community at Daily Kos are struggling right now. The writers and amateur detectives who “proved” Weiner was hacked by Breitbart are strangely quiet. No site members will own up to participating in the mass delusion. Word has come down from on high (possibly from Kos himself) that that the “publishing deadline” for all Weiner diaries is 6 PM, Tuesday, June 7, 2011. After that, straight down the Memory Hole.
It’s almost impossible to parody these people; “1984″ is more of an operating guide than a nightmare.
I will commend one honest man among the Kos Kiddies and link his diary. As Wretchard and many of us here knew already, “Truth became the handmaiden of ideology.” Victor – Daily Kos"
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/06/982637/-Truth:-what-we-should-learn-from-the-Weiner-affair?via=siderecent
H/T:
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/06/06/let-it-be/#more-15065
It has already been said here, but getting caught with all his lies could not have happened to a nicer guy. He will most likely get a pass just Jack the John.
Along with several colleagues in congress Weiner passed the KIDS (Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators) Act of 2007.
http://www.weiner.house.gov/issue_display.aspx?id=844
Thinking ahead a year . . . the only Republican Presidential candidate that has a hope of surviving the vicious attacks of the Media Party will be someone with the guts & backbone that Breitbart has.
For example, while Romney may be a good man, he's is too much of a crowd pleaser & poll chaser. Much like McCain got eaten up by the Media Party, so will the likes of Romney. One has to fundamentally understand that their purpose there is not to get the truth, but to destroy the Republican candidate.
Victor Davis Hanson says it well. Thanks for that ET.
The only thing to add is that most of the media gives them a pass.
I went over to Salon to see what their response to AB was and came across this hilarious comment...
I smell a rat
I knew NOTHING about this story until my local radio station took its normal programming off the air to air the bizarre Weiner press conference so I apologize if I am not breaking any new ground.
Is it possible that this Breitbart character has been persuading women to seduce Democrats by sending flirty or seductive messages to them?
What Weiner did was sick and revolting. And two wrongs don't make a right.
However, if Breitbart is doing this to Weiner and others, HIS is the BIGGER WRONG.
By the way, the longer the press conference went on, the more I felt the newspaper reporters were absolute scum (and I was a newspaper reporter for a long time). Their behavior was rude and obnoxious.
—zwrite
These folks truly are self mocking...
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/06/weiner_breitbart_press_conference/index.html
Thanks Robert. Breitbart is a courageous man. The fact he went in front of all those a**hats and confronted them speaks volumes. Congress(man) Weiner probably had a different approach to the presser but when Andrew came out he had to change tack. That would explain the lengthy delay.
If the GOP can come out with a candidate who acts like Andrew and directly confronts the Dems they will win. So far, only Palin and Cain seem to have the cojones to do so. God help us if they don't.
patricia - Al Gore lied about 'climate change', attributing any changes/warming/cooling to 'Evil Man' and insisting that man 'pay for his sins'..by various taxes and energy changes. Science has shown that the whole AGW is a scam.
Oh - and he lied to the public and his family about him being a 'family man'.
texan- thanks for the post. Right - Weiner 'came clean' on his behaviour. Sure..only at the end when too many of the women were speaking out about him and he had no choice. Until then, Weiner was declaring that he was a victim of hacking; that he had 'assuredly' not sent a single post...Lies, lies, lies.
Geez I'll never get drunk this way
batb, Black Mamba -- O.K. I agree, he's a scumbag.
"What pray tell did Al gore lie about, ET?"
Great satire.
mhb23re