Anyone who has been sober and half-awake during the last week has undoubtedly heard that Representative Anthony Weiner stands accused of sending (tweeting?) an image of a man's (purportedly his own) grey underwear with either (a) a surprisingly hefty male member (b) a quite large salami, or (c) some sort of cylindrical object that might or might not be circumcised.
Television pundits of both the right, center and left had a field day joking endlessly about "Weinergate", "The Weiner Problem", Weiner's Pickle" and an apparently unending string of weiner/penis/underwear jokes, puns and double-entendres. Representative Weiner has given the story legs by refusing to state categorically that it is not a picture of his man-pants and their hefty-boy contents. To the contrary, he expressed "embarrassment" when his college-era (and current) friend Jon Stewart raved for five minutes about how the Anthony Weiner HE knew after college and used to swim naked in the Atlantic Ocean with certainly never had a weiner that magnificent. To the contrary, particularly in cold water it was just tiny! No WAY that was a photo of Anthony Weiner's weiner!
The pundits gassed on at great length about how clueless Weiner was for claiming that the photo was tweeted by a hacker, but that he could not state conclusively that it was not a photo taken from his computer or phone and perhaps digitally altered. He appeared to leave open the possibility that it was NOT altered and that he really is swinging that big a stick. Fox News is apoplectic. They are furious because he does not appear contrite, he is not making a big deal out of it and calling the FBI, instead (as said on Fox News Saturday morning) he actually seems to be enjoying all the attention! That rat! How dare he enjoy being the center of attention, with pundits falling all over themselves trying to figure out whether such a skinny Jewish kid could really have... well, you know. In a week that was supposed to be all about Mitt Romney announcing his run for President and the Republicans working to shove their tax cutting/program-gutting agenda down President Obama's throat... no one cared. The hottest news was whether a firebrand leftwing New York Congressman really is that hung. Or not. Discuss endlessly. And worse, that instead of crying like a baby, he seemed to be enjoying it! He even had the nerve to tell Representative Paul Ryan in the middle of the entire uproar that he had lots more Twitter Followers than Ryan and he expected his numbers to grow.
It has often been said that there is no such thing as good publicity or bad publicity, there is only publicity. In world where being really manly (the Republican Party) the idea that a skinny leftwing firebrand like Anthony Weiner might actually be carrying more weight than say... John Boehner, who tends to cry a lot in public and appears far less masculine than his wife... has got to be the Republicans' worst nightmare. How can they fight back? How can they regain their dominance in the pointless"mine is bigger than yours" battle that weak minds like theirs cling to? Post revealing photos on their campaign websites? That just doesn't sound like a good idea. How did this mess go so terribly wrong?
It turns out that some
computer enthusiasts linked to the infamous wingnut Andew Breitbart have been shadowing Representative Weiner's tweets for months, consumed with hatred over his political views, his fiery speeches about Republican proposals and actions, and I suspect, because they see him as "other". He is not black, but he is something even creepier to your average wingnut. He is a Jewi who recently married Hillary Clinton's longtime personal aide Huma Abedin, who is Indian & Pakistani in background, and Muslim. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!! Un-American! During the 2008 campaign Abedin was the focus of Republican efforts to smear Hillary Clinton as a closet Lesbian, claiming she was having an affair with Abedin.
The Republicans, specifically their hit-man Andrew Breitbart, appear desperate to smear anyone and everyone who is to the left of their political positions. Weiner has become a particularly large target because he is unashamedly progressive and scathingly and articulately critical of the current Republican agenda. He runs pretty hot, but he is a very bright cookie. Still glowing from their successes in crippling "ACORN" and Planned Parenthood, the Breitbart cabal and its various camp followers apparently hoped they could score a knockout blow by posting an "underwear photo", along with the claim that Weiner had tweeted it to an underage woman. But the purported recipient says that she is 21 and never got it and she's not sure what the fuss is about. Ooops. And now the individual who seems to have set up the smear has suddenly realized he is far more vulnerable than he remembered he was. Given his description of his personal circumstances and problems, memory would appear to be not his strong point. He says he is very, very afraid because he has picked a fight with a man who married Hillary Clinton's closest aide, whose marriage to Representative Weiner was officiated by Bill Clinton. Say what you will about Bill and Hillary Clinton, they have some very powerful friends. And long memories. I think they will not be very amused at these shenanigans. It may remind them all too painfully of the slurs and lies they were subjected to during their political careers.
Breitbart, the leader of this pack of smear-merchants, has another problem. Shirley Sherrod has sued him for defamation of character and is asking for damages and punitive damages. A court has taken the case and things do not look good for Breitbart, who appears to consider himself to be on a sacred mission from God (or Ronald Reagan?) that absolves him of all responsibility for his actions. The court is not likely to agree. If I am any judge of body language and voice stress, Breitbart is not holding up very well. Whether he is using some type of stimulants or drinking heavily I could not say, not being an expert in melt-downs, but (a) he doesn't look good (b) he seems close to cracking up, and (c) he is blaming all his problems on... you gotta love this... Glenn Beck. Those involved in smear tactics would appear to be turning on one another. This could get juicy. I would LOVE to see Glenn Beck be cross-examined.
Here is five minutes of self-serving nonsense that gives a sense of how Breitbart is or is not doing. I would vote for "not";
CLICK HERE.
And while that is going on,
here is a remarkable "interview" of the likely "perp" in the Anthony Weiner smear, who seems responsible for posting the picture in question. It is almost impossible to read, since it is about ten or twelve pages long and goes in circles a lot. It is not the words of a happy individual. It sounds like someone who is very worried that he is about to hear a knock on his door from someone carrying a badge, something he fears will destroy his fragile lifestyle. I wish no one ill, but this looks to be a case of someone shooting themselves in the foot and then complaining that someone forced them to buy a gun because he hated them so much. It is not a great defense. This entire adventure may end up putting a crimp in the amateur GOP partisan smear machine. Getting arrested usually takes the fun out of any given activity. And while the jokes and puns were flying like confetti, no one noticed Mitt Romney. All they cared about was Weiner's (apparently) substantial weiner. Life is so unfair sometimes.
Arthur
(Know what I find amazing about the newspaper that magically appears on my doorstep every morning before dawn? well I'm going to tell you. All the news that happens every day just happens to fit neatly right into that paper. Yep. No more, no less. It's amazing. And the stories. Oh the stories. Like today for instance. In just a quick scan of a few minutes this morning we read of a bar in Paris that the owner has turned into some kind of shrine to Jim Morrison and The Doors, and who is now being sued by a Beverly Hills attorney who warns in a letter that "The Doors do not want to be seen as having approved of your establishment and also the consumption of alcohol." We all know Morrison didn't approve of the consumtion of alcohol, don't we? I also learned that drug lords in Mexico have taken to wearing Polo shirts, and now all the street venders are selling them like hot tacos to everyone. We all want to look like a Mexican drug lord, don't we? And I also read that Tony Packo's, the corner bar in Toledo, Ohio that Max Klinger on M.A.S.H. said was the best place in the world to go for a Hungarian hot dog, might close down over some family financial dispute. I hope it doesn't. Where then would we go to find the best hot dog in the world? Feel free to E-mail me with your suggestions. But I digress ... ) 
