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06 Jun 2011 17:06

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Politics: Today’s dramatic Anthony Weiner admission: What happened

  • The admission Congressman Anthony Weiner has confessed not just to sending a photo of his clothed penis to one woman, but to having sexually explicit (though non-physical) relationships with six or so women over three years. He repeatedly stressed his apologies, most of them directed at his wife, Huma.
  • No resignation Weiner made it clear, though — he has no intention of resigning his position as a congressman from New York. He maintains he hasn’t violated his oath to uphold the Constitution, and will work to convince his constituents that this was a personal failing that doesn’t compromise his ability to do his job.
  • The Breitbart angle Andrew Breitbart caused a stir when he arrived before Weiner’s appearance, and answered questions from the podium. He’s since said this wasn’t his idea, and that he was skeptical about it (we’d rate it a bad idea). That said, Weiner apologized to Breitbart by name during his appearance. source

04 Jun 2011 02:32

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Politics: Weinergate devolves into flood of conspiracy theories

  • Anthony Weiner‘s got a lot of problems this week, but they’re sorta inflated. First off, the story is kind of at a point where fatigue is very high. However, despite technical evidence, including a very obvious yFrog flaw that would’ve made it easy to post a rogue tweet on Weiner’s account, the congressman’s performance this week has proven to be a complete liability, giving conservatives enough rope to hang him with. (By the way, just wanted to point out — we discovered the @PatriotUSA76 angle 15 hours before DailyKos broke it.) But at this point, only the die-hards are really, truly following this story. One of them, by the way, is a reporter for Mediaite — Tommy Christopher. We criticized Mediaite for their aggressive coverage Thursday but will give some credit today. You guys did some good work that deserves praise. More info:
  • useful Mediaite’s piece on Dan Wolfe (@PatriotUSA76) makes the strongest argument yet of Wolfe building a Wiener conspiracy … around underage girls. Daily Kos looks really bad in the piece, by the way.
  • crazy Not long after Wolfe deleted his Twitter account, the blog Ace of Spades HQ posted a screed on why he’s “irrelevant” in the scheme of Weinergate using a kinda-convoluted poker metaphor. Hrm.
  • crazier Have any patience left? You might lose it after reading the “interview” a conservative blogger did with Wolfe — essentially a long, unedited chat log. Take an Adderall before reading this; you’re gonna need it. source

30 May 2011 19:33

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Politics: Why we’re taking a break from more Weinergate news

  • At a time when the GOP is playing games with the debt limit, a member of the Supreme Court is refusing to recuse himself from matters he has a financial interest in, and middle class incomes are stagnant, many want to change the subject. I don’t. This was a prank, and a silly one. I’m focused on my work.
  • Rep. Anthony Weiner • Trying to draw a line in the sand on this whole Weinergate story, which has certainly gotten a bit crazier over the past day. The Atlantic Wire has a roundup of the story, which has gotten to the point of farce. CNN also got Weiner on camera today, where he seemed at least a little annoyed to be taking the questions. But ultimately, though, this piece of evidence (grabbed by Soup) is the strongest against Weiner doing anything wrong. Also, has anyone noticed how Mediaite has kinda gone crazy over this story? We love the site and everything, but they got a Photoshop expert to analyze the photo. A bit much, eh? They’re not the only ones, but you know what, we’re going to leave this mess alone for a while. The EXIF data is good enough for us. source

28 May 2011 23:31

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U.S.: “Weinergate”: Scouring Anthony Weiner’s rogue tweet saga

  • Look, we don’t want the Weiner story to be true. But we’ve done enough tweeting in our day to know all the tricks for reading someone’s social media tracks. We spent a couple of hours digging through tweets to find out more info. And, to us, there seems to be some evidence pointing in both directions on this story. The key thing for us is the existence of the rogue tweet, which was captured by TweetCongress.org even after it was deleted. But there’s also stuff that makes us wonder. The patient zero — the first person to retweet Anthony Weiner’s NSFW tweet — was this guy, who we’ve found in our research to be overly fixated on the congressman even BEFORE the tweet in question. In fact, he posted about a cheating scandal just like this one over TWO WEEKS AGO. Really? How was he so quick to hit the trigger on this? Some other things we noticed from the scandal:
  • for On Twitter, Weiner noted the Seattle time of his Friday TV appearance. The recipient of the NSFW tweet, from Seattle, retweeted.
  • for The person at the center of the drama deleted her Twitter account — which was active as of yesterday — after the tweet.
  • for The girl in question said Weiner was her “boyfriend” in an April tweet. Yeah, so? Her and every other liberal teen female has!
  • against To disprove that the photo was of Weiner, Daily Kos has a test of the NSFW photo that suggested it was ‘shopped. Hm.
  • » The important things to take from this: We don’t think Weiner did anything wrong as of yet, but we do think that there is a lot to suggest one of two things: One, this was possibly a scandal planted by someone who had closely followed the congressman’s Twitter account (because, based on our research, people have), and there were somewhat bizarre things that may have connected Weiner to the girl. Given the track record of Big Journalism, where the story originated from, we’d like to see a better source tackle this thing, because we don’t trust Breitbart as far as we can throw him. We rate this an “inconclusive.”

21 Apr 2011 11:12

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Politics: This just in: Allen West causes orificial secretions

  • The idea of an Allen West/Herman Cain all-black conservative ticket would titillate me to the point of secretions coming out of every orifice.
  • Andrew Breitbart • On who he’d like to see on the GOP ticket in 2012. Lovely imagery aside, this sort of reasoning is a reflection of the belief, common amongst some conservatives, that all the GOP needs to do to win over certain demographics is nominate members of those demographics to high-profile tickets. This isn’t the case, as McCain’s VP pick in 2008 proved all too well. source

17 Apr 2011 10:59

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Politics: Is Andrew Breitbart right? Did the “silent majority” win in Wisconsin?

  • We’re sure he didn’t mean it the way Nixon did: Back in the late 1960s, Richard Nixon famously made a speech about the Vietnam War where he said this: “And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support.” Yesterday, the owner of Breitbart.com, BigGovernment, and so on suggested this while on the stoop in Wisconsin: “We are witnessing the end of community organizing … the silent majority won.” Even if our boy wasn’t making an apples-to-apples comparison, the words are symbolic. source

08 Mar 2011 18:59

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Politics: Andrew Breitbart: No beef between me and James O’Keefe

  • The mainstream media uses me as a way to marginalize James, and James as a means to marginalize me.
  • Andrew Breitbart • Explaining why his decision to pass on the latest James O’Keefe saga, involving a soon-to-be-departing NPR exec, isn’t an attempt to distance himself from the gotcha video specialist. “I’ve said all along that James needs to be an independent journalist,” he said. “His ACORN videos weren’t posted exclusively on Breitbart sites.” Breitbart famously criticized his protegé after he attempted to do some sketchy stuff involving CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau. But for what it’s worth, Breitbart appears to be pretty happy with O’Keefe’s latest story, even if he wasn’t the guy who brought it to the world. source
 

14 Feb 2011 13:18

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Politics: Shirley Sherrod makes good on her promise to Andrew Breitbart

  • YES Shirley Sherrod has filed suit against Andrew Breitbart source
  • » Bad day for scurillous-ness: The former USDA official was famously the target of a heavily cut video clip that seemed to present her as a racist who withheld help to a white farmer. The aftermath saw a gross and shocking leap to conclusion by the USDA under Tom Vilsack, which forced her resignation, before some helpful skeptics examined the full video which showed she was making a point AGAINST racism. I’ll admit, this case does have relevant, personal importance for bloggers, as the man charged is in that sense “one of our own,” even ones that wouldn’t be caught dead at a Breitbart event. But notwithstanding, whether the charge of defamation is well-earned or not, some of Mr. Breitbart’s antics have been grossly deceptive and unscrupulous.

16 Nov 2010 10:54

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Politics: Who created The Huffington Post? Our money’s on Breitbart

  • her Arianna Huffington launched The Huffington Post back in 2005 as a mix of news and insight from celebrity figures. It’s been gangbusters ever since then.
  • them Two Democratic operatives say they came up with the idea in 2004 and gave it to Huffington. Now they’re suing. She says she declined to hire them at the time.
  • him Andrew Breitbart claims that he came up with the idea for the site, which makes sense because he and Huffington were longtime allies until after the launch. source

02 Nov 2010 20:17

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Politics: Andrew Breitbart learns about professional embarrassment

  • Instead of clarifying your role, you posted a blog on Sunday evening in which you continued to claim a bigger role in our coverage.  As we are still unable to agree on your role, we feel it best for you not to participate.
  • ABC News Digital Executive Producer Andrew Morse • Telling Andrew Breitbart that he’s no longer wanted for election night coverage. He blew it because he kept claiming he was playing a much larger part than he actually was. So now they just ditched him. It’s about time he fell flat on his face, y’know.  source