Weinergate Continuing to Look Like a Self-Inflicted Wound

First, from the Daily Caller:

 Write your own Weiner headline, folks -- It was a busy Memorial Day weekend for Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), and for lovers of frankfurter-related puns everywhere. TheDC's Matthew Boyle briefs(!) us on the growing(!!) scandal that's been dubbed Weinergate: "The imbroglio started Friday night when Weiner’s official 'verified' Twitter account sent a photo of a man's erect penis underneath gray boxer shorts to a woman in Washington State. Both Weiner and his spokesman, Dave Arnold, have stated that the lewd photograph made it onto the congressman’s Twitter account as result of a hacking of Weiner's Facebook and Twitter profiles. Weiner's office told TheDC that they won't allow this issue to become a distraction and that they are 'consulting on what steps' they can take regarding the hacking... Arnold would not specify what steps Weiner is considering. It is unclear whether a Capitol Hill police or FBI investigation into the hacking will ensue. Neither the Capitol Hill police nor the FBI has returned TheDC's requests for comment." Identity theft is a crime, and Weiner is a sitting member of Congress who is claiming that someone has broken into his online accounts in order to embarrass and defame him. This goes beyond a harmless prank. Rather than call for an official investigation, though, Dave Arnold says: "We've retained counsel to explore the proper next steps and to advise us on what civil or criminal actions should be taken." Wouldn't the proper next step be to demand that the authorities investigate this crime and apprehend the culprit? In other words: Why haven't they called the cops? In any case, the normally publicity-hungry Rep. Weiner certainly isn't responding to all this attention with his usual relish. 

I've had a little bit of time to look at this since the story first broke and it's pretty clear to me what happened.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY and NYC Mayor-Wannabe) sent the Tweet. He meant to send it as a Direct Message which can only be read by the sender and recipient, but in his...uh, excitement, shall we say, to show a 21-year old college girl his crotch self-portrait, he hit the wrong button and sent the Tweet via his regular Twitter stream. All 40,000 of his followers had a chance to see it if they were paying attention at that time, and apparently one did and forwarded it on to others as well as capturing screen shots of the offending Tweet.

It's an easy mistake to make (not the sending of crotch shots, but sending something to the entire stream instead of by Direct Message). I remember one conservative I follow on Twitter accidentally sent his cellphone number to all of his followers instead of just to one particular person. It happens and it's not that hard to do. That's why it's pretty easy for me to come to the conclusion that Weiner was the culprit.

Getting back to our story, Weiner, realizing his error, tried to do some quick clean-up by deleting the Tweet and also going into his YFrog photo account and deleting all but just a couple of pictures. The girl on the receiving end immediately deleted her Facebook and Twitter accounts, and that creates even greater suspicion on my part.

I'm somewhat familiar with 21-year old college girls and their attraction to Facebook. With two college kids of my own I know that Facebook is the center of their social universe. All their friends are on there, they share information, comment on each other's activities, and plan social events via the service. No socially active college girl is going to suddenly dump her Facebook account and cut herself off from her social world unless there's stuff on there that if revealed by an investigation could cause trouble for her or for, let's say, a powerful New York Democrat.

By refusing to involve law enforcement and instead choosing to "lawyer up", Weiner simply confirms what we already knew. Innocent people don't "lawyer up", they call the cops. The guy's dirty and we all know it.

Will it matter? Probably not. The media swallowed Weiner's "I was hacked!" story verbatim and didn't even ask the simple questions that would have been asked of any Republican in the same situation. Just ask former Rep. Chris Lee. Lee resigned when his troubles came to light, Weiner will not. Democrats don't do the honorable thing.

He'll continue in his position and this isn't likely to slow down his drive for the mayor's office in NYC. If anything, this kind of stuff is a resume' enhancer for Democrats. It's expected of them. Weiner's "shortcomings" are unlikely to affect his career, though they'll follow him forever. That's the best we can hope for.