Scandal of the Week: Congressman Weiner (D. New York's 9th District) claims that his Twitter account was hacked when a 21-year old college woman received an inappropriate picture of someone's (Weiner's?) male anatomy in whitey tighties. Now Rep. Weiner is backing off his original accusation that he was hacked (potentially a felony) and instead calls it a prank.
Sort of a big difference.
Obviously the congressman would like the story to go away. But why? If he was hacked by presumably right-wing agitators (such as Andrew Breitbart), wouldn't Weiner go full-throttle here? This is his opportunity to put that pesky Breitbart away once and for all. Instead, he's trying to change the subject, and has apparently hired a lawyer.
Jonah Goldberg makes a couple of good points. First of all, if this were a Republican congressman in the center of this salacious story, the mainstream media would be All Over It, as indeed they were just this past month. The special election in New York to replace Republican Chris Lee was necessary after it was discovered that Lee had posted pictures of himself shirtless in a Craigslist ad (yuk). And the media were all over Mark Foley back in 2006, when it was discovered the Florida Republican had sent suggestive emails to young men (yuk again).
Disgusting and offensive acts, agreed. They did and should resign. But let's be consistent. It shouldn't matter that these undies belong to a Democrat. Salacious is salacious, regardless of party affiliation. Let's get to the...um, bottom of the story. As Jonah writes, "I honestly have no idea what happened, but I do know that Anthony Weiner is exactly the kind of Democrat who would sensationalize a story like this if the politician involved was a Republican."
But here's Weiner refusing to answer any questions from the press.
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