THE LOWER-THAN-AVERAGE QUOTA OF SHAMELESS LYING MUST HAVE BEEN THREATENING BREITBART'S HEALTH

(UPDATE: Greetings, Balloon Juice readers. John linked me twice in this post. I assume the second link he meant to send you to was this.)

The remarkable thing about the Weiner scandal is that Andrew Breitbart was involved, and yet he seems to engaged far less in shameless lying and deceit than usual. A fair amount of what he said was actually true.

This must have been a shock to his system. Remember how Jerry Garcia died just as he was detoxing? Breitbart was probably at risk of similar consequences, simply from not lying.

So he may have saved his own life by first saying this:

Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger who first reported on the lewd photo of Rep. Anthony Weiner, said he has an X-rated picture of the Democratic congressman that he's keeping as "an insurance policy" against any reprisals....

He said he could not see a circumstance in which he would release the X-rated image.

"I don't think I want to put his family through that type of thing," Breitbart said when asked why he doesn't release the photo.

And then "inadvertently" being the cause of this:

A pair of radio shock jocks are claiming that Andrew Breitbart showed them a picture of Rep. Anthony Weiner's weiner -- and they have now circulated the image on the Web....

But Breitbart appeared today on the Opie & Anthony radio show. And, according to the hosts, he showed them that very X-rated picture on his phone. The hosts say they captured video of Breitbart's phone while the image was on its screen, which (Not Safe For Work) you can see here and here.

Breitbart says:

Earlier today, a photograph resembling one that I had withheld from publication in the Weinergate saga was released without my knowledge or permission....

I regret that this occurred.

Lying -- it is to Breitbart what insulin is to a diabetic.

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AND, AS IT TURNS OUT: Breitbart, after leaving Weiner bleeding by the side of the road a week and a half ago, didn't even need to recruit two talk-radio clowns to return to the scene of the mugging and shoot Weiner in the back out of fear that he might actually survive, because, as it turns out, Weiner's wife is pregnant. So Weiner now looks like an even bigger cad to his constituents and the general public, which means his career can be measured in days, and Breitbart's follow-up assassination-by-proxy wasn't even necessary.