Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is panting to be Mayor of New York someday, was doing okay with the underpants scandal for the first two days.
What happened was a picture of a man’s crotch in grey boxer-briefs posted briefly from the Democrat’s twitter feed last week. It was sent to a female college student in Washington State; the woman is a twitter follower of Weiner’s. The picture was quickly taken down. Weiner says his account was hacked.
Oh, if only he’d stuck with that line. Instead, Anthony Weiner lost it.
The entire Weiner situation is unfortunate. I’m talking about his name, and the slang for a man’s genitals. Really, it’s too perfect for juvenile reporters who are dying for ratings. It’s low hanging fruit, ready for the picking over a slow and news-starved holiday weekend.
I wish Weiner had just curled up in a beach house somewhere and let the entire thing blow over. Instead, it appears he insisted on going out in public and attempting to change the course of conversation. You can’t do that. If you’re in the middle of a mini-scandal, and you appear in public and open yourself up for questions, we reporting types are not going to ask you about the budget. We’re going to ask you about whose crotch may or not be in that picture, and how it got to Seattle, and why you haven’t called in the cops if you claim you were hacked.
Calling a journalist a ‘jackass’ really isn’t the way to go. You’re turning the spotlight up a bit more.
And then saying you can’t say with ‘certitude’ that the crotch in the picture is not yours — dude. Just shut up. You’re giving me a canister of gasoline and expecting the flames to die down. Crotch shots+social media+ridiculous political speak+cussing out reporters = massive amounts of trouble.
Shut up. Right now.
