Saturday, June 11, 2011

IT STILL LOOKS AS IF YOU'VE GOT NOTHING, RIGHTIES

This could change five minutes after I hit PUBLISH, but I'm looking at the latest Weiner revelation, which has the entire right-o-sphere hot and bothered, and I'm thinking there's no there there. Why do I say that? Well, in part because, if this were really the beginning of the end, I don't think the lead story at the New York Post Web site would be the tale of a Bronx woman who wants to be buried with her pets. I kinda think Weinergate might bump that, if there were something new and genuinely damaging.

The front page of today's print Post also ignores Weiner, except for a banner at the bottom (which concerns more dirty talk, but again between Weiner and an adult).

So what do we have that has the righties in a tizzy? Gawker explains it best:

Cops Probe Teen's Contact with Weiner, Come Upon Nothing

Avid Weiner-watchers in the press jumped on a Friday evening "Fox News Exclusive" that police in New Castle, Del. were investigating the online communication between Rep. Anthony Weiner (D - N.Y.) and a 17-year-old high school junior -- but the young woman's mother had already spoken to the
New York Post earlier in the week, telling the paper that Weiner had sent only "two brief messages" to her daughter (brief messages, not briefs messages)....

The New Castle police department told the
Post that the teenager "disclosed no information regarding any criminal activity" in the course of their investigation. The cops seem to have been tipped off (maybe by the conservative anti-Weiner Twitter brigade that's been pushing "Weiner likes young girls" since before Weinergate?) to "alleged contact between Congressman Anthony Weiner and an area teen," and followed up yesterday -- unfortunately (for Weiner), arriving at the woman's house at the exact moment a Fox News crew was "inside speaking with a family member."

Fox's Jana Winter quickly put up her police investigation exclusive. But the
Post -- working just a few floors away at 1211 Avenue of the Americas -- had already spoken with the Delaware family (on Wednesday) and found nothing that would indicate (sexual) impropriety....

Gor read the New York Times story if you want to see what was said in these exchanges. There's nothing there.

Look, she's 17. It's creepier. But I don't think it's going to move the needle in his district all that much, and polls show that voters there want him to stay on. If that matters, he can still survive. (Yes, I realize that a lot of right-thinking citizens don't believe the will of the voters should matter in this case.)

This could get a lot worse. But it hasn't yet.

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