Archive for May, 2011

The Weiner case: There is spin and there is SPIN

Posted: May 30, 2011 by datechguy in media, politics
Tags: , ,

I so didn’t want to wake up typing, I have things to do, Herman Cain is just 2 hours away in New Hampshire, the wife and kids have the day off and I still don’t know where in NE Sarah Palin is going to be and I have two sample ads to write for a potential customer of the radio show.

Not to mention normal Memorial Day stuff.

And yet the Weiner case continues to beckon with developments that are not at all favorable to our friends on the left. So here I am back at the keyboard after mass trying to get an update in before the Memorial Day observance.

The young lady in question put out a statement yesterday that you will find at the New York Daily News, in it she makes some charges concerning a person on Twitter “harassed” her:

The account that these tweets were sent from was familiar to me; this person had harassed me many times after the Congressman followed me on Twitter a month or so ago. Since I had dealt with this person and his cohorts before I assumed that the tweet and the picture were their latest attempts at defaming the Congressman and harassing his supporters.

This will be read by the tens of thousands who read that paper.

What will likely not be read by those same tens of thousands are two tweets she put out last night saying:

1. I never said or implied that the alleged “stalker” was behind the tweet

2. I never once speculated about the alleged hacking.

Say WHAT? This is Bill Clinton grade: “it depends on the meaning of the what the word ‘is’ is” style.

It would seem to me the statement’s purpose was not to deal with unanswered questions but to get the “I’m being harassed by the right” theme out so the left can follow-up with nonsense like this from Joan Walsh:

It’s about @AndrewBreitbart and insane bloggers savaging a 21 year old girl.

Apparently the media not able to contain the story has decided their narrative is going to be about evil right wingers harassing a poor innocent 21-year-old journalism student.

PLEASE!

This narrative is designed to do one thing: to take the spotlight off of the suddenly silent Anthony Weiner and to avoid asking Ms. Cordova some specific questions such as:

1. Did you at any time send or relieve Direct Messages with Congressman Weiner via Twitter or any software used to access Twitter?

2. Did anyone from the Congressman’s office contact you at any time between the time the tweet became known and the release of your statement.

3. Did you exchange direct messages with Tommy Christopher of Mediate before the release of your statement, and if so what was the nature of said messages?

4. Who if anyone aided in the drafting, editing and presentation of your prepared statement, was a lawyer consulted

Tell me Ms. Walsh would you consider those questions “savaging” anyone?

And incidentally, do you have any questions for the congressman as Stacy McCain explains:

I think if you were keenly observant, you might have noticed something curious over the weekend: The normally loquacious @RepWeiner didn’t have a damned thing to say about this whole “hacking” incident, except a couple of vague jokes.

Does it not strike you as odd, Ms. Walsh, that the New York congressman — who has never been known to be averse to TV cameras — did not rush into a studio, or call a press conference, to rebut the accusation that he had Tweeted photos of his tumescence to a 21-year-old?

So the loquacious congressman says nothing, while his spokesman issues denials and, after 36 “anxiety-filled” hours, we get a confusing statement from the self-described “fan” of Weiner to whom the notorious photo was addressed.

There is something wrong with this story, Ms. Walsh. And what’s wrong has nothing to do with Andrew Breitbart.

Lee Stranahan follows up with two examples of simple questions that Joan Walsh has not asked:

1. Why did Rep. Weiner, who only follows 200 people, choose to follow 21 year old college student Gennette Cordova?

2. And how exactly did he come to follow her?

Ms. Walsh, may I point out that Andrew Breitbart was not following the young lady on Twitter but a certain congressman in a district 2900 miles from her was. I don’t claim to be a professional journalist but it would seem to me that any reporter whose goal is the truth of this matter rather than defending a congressman beloved by the left would be asking questions. Andrew Breitbart is not the story here no matter how much you or the Daily Kos crowd wish it to be so.

Meanwhile as paid reports cry “Breitbart” and unleash the dogs of indignation Ace of Spades contacted the alleged “harasser” who answered direct questions posed to him (I also contacted him asking to speak to him by phone last night, he choose not to speak by phone and I choose not to ask my questions via the net).

Have you been contacted by any law enforcement officers or agents whatsoever?

His answer:

No one. Nada. I keep saying bring it on. I have nothing to hide. Not my IP nothing to hide at all.

No one from law enforcement contacted Detective Colby Hall’s number one suspect in the hacking case of the decade? No one? No one at all?

Excuse Me?

Additionally the gentleman in question has offered to hand over anything an investigator might want concerning this. Ace again:

Isn’t it odd that Weiner and the Comely Coed are not calling the police, while the man the left has all-but-accused as being behind this is the only one who wants a police investigation?

It apparently isn’t odd if you are Joan Walsh or Colby Hall of Mediate. Apparently Ace has demonstrated reporting is one of those jobs American reporters don’t want to do .

Oh and Joan, Colby in case you missed it Bryan Preston notes another Coincidence that a reporter might choose to ask about

It was just a coincidence that Rep. Anthony Weiner had spent much of Friday on twitter (where he could tweet publicly as well as direct message, of course) laying in wait for a supposed Clarence Thomas docu-dump; and it was a coincidence that Weiner happened to see the allegedly criminal tweet, and was able to delete the tweet in question within minutes of it going off into the wild, even though he allegedly had nothing to do with sending that tweet in the first place. He’s a regular Twitter Batman.

Think about it; a “hack” of Congressman Weiner’s accounts DURING THE MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND that has the potential to damage his reputation takes place just as he just happens to be sitting there ready to delete the offending tweet and picture.

What a lucky guy!

Oh one last thing, take a look at this story from CBS. Here is the headline:

Rep. Weiner: I did not send Twitter crotch pic

Now a person seeing that headline would naturally assume that CBS asked Rep Weiner and he denied it. Unfortunately that’s not what the story says:
(CBS/AP)

NEW YORK — A lewd photograph of a crotch sent from the Twitter account of U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner is just “a distraction” perpetrated by a hacker, his spokesman said Sunday.

Dave Arnold told The Associated Press in an email that the tweet, directed at a woman, was “a distraction” from the married New York Democrat’s “important work representing his constituents.”

So it’s a distraction? I have a question:

Has anybody in the Media spoken directly to Congressman Weiner on the record concerning this matter?

The most interesting part of this story is going to be the MSM spin, but at least they can use it as an excuse to ignore Sarah Palin.

Interesting Items in the Weiner story have arisen…

Posted: May 29, 2011 by datechguy in media, politics
Tags: ,

I left the PC to grill some burgers, dogs and pinwheels from Romano’s Mkt and here comes a Memeorandum thread on my first post and several new developments:

Before we get to them lets say this: there is no evidence that this young lady has done anything wrong. She is a 21-year-old girl and the only thing we definitely know is somebody sent her a lewd photo on twitter. That reflects on the person who sent it.

Item: The young lady in question now has a new twitter account. @GennetteC.

It would appear that there are very few tweets on the account, very few followers (only 63) at the moment but I suspect that will grow. She has announced that she will be releasing a statement soon and has thanked her friends from keeping the press away from her.

However as Ladd Ehlinger tweets an item of interest. He notes one of the four people she is currently following happens to be Tommy Christopher of Mediate who has coincidentally put up an article that suggests in addition to questions concerning Rep Weiner’s story we need to take a closer look at conservative Dan Wolfe who as he puts it:

So, a guy who has been building exactly this narrative for months turns out to be the one and only unique retweet of the picture in question? Just as Rep. Weiner’s cryptic hashtag about the Seattle time zone is reason to raise reasonable flag of suspicion, so too is this.

Now of course the fact that a left leaning blogger making this statement is apparently one of the only 4 people the young lady is following and she is about to make a statement might be totally coincidental.

Item: Lee Stranahan notes an article the young lady wrote in March:

If you’re like me, then you’re someone who is guilty of caring about what goes on in the life and minds of celebrities. When people are really famous, chances are they do not have a personal Facebook page that fans have access to; most celebrities use a fan page that is usually managed by someone else. In contrast, Twitter has thousands and thousands of verified, personal, celebrity accounts. The reason being, Facebook is a private social network, while Twitter is essentially an online environment for public news dissemination. Celebs can give their fans access to their tweets without the burden of being every fan’s “friend.”

Let’s stipulate again that this could just be a coincidental observation that any person could have made about twitter. It just happened to be her.

Item: via Stacy the Prudence Paine Papers notes something…interesting:

Ginger Lee’s tweet said: You know it’s a good day when you wake up to a DM from @RepWeiner. (I’m a fangirl, y’all, he’s my trifecta of win.)

Ginger Lee is a porn star, she is a fan of Anthony Weiner. Now let’s stipulate two things right off.

1. Being a porn star means that’s what she does for a living, it doesn’t mean it’s what she does for a hobby.

2. There is no reason a liberal democratic porn star would not be a fan of Anthony Weiner.

Prudence Paine also notes an interesting fact concerning a teenage girl who by an odd coincidence:

1. Had a crush on Anthony Weiner

2. Has suddenly deleted her twitter account

Let’s stipulate again that a teenage girl having a crush on Anthony Weiner is not his fault except for being so darn irresistible.

Left Bank of the Charles who has been on my show and who I respect noted in comments in the first post that the “hacker” could have added the young lady in question as a follower. The problem that is developing here is explained at Pajamas media by Bryan Preston:

Occam’s Razor suggests that the coincidences aren’t just that. But we’ll see.

There’s the rub. Any single one of these things can be explained away innocently enough, the problem is that for the hacker story to hold EVERY single one of these “coincidences” have to be explained away.

Meanwhile Stacy McCain reminds us of the Mark Foley case:

There are certain headline formulas that are automatically newsworthy. “Congressman + coed” is one. “Congressman + porn star” is another. The fact that the story appears to be only a case of inappropriate private communication — no one is suggesting that Weiner was boinking his Twitter friends — does not lessen its news value.

Remember that no one ever claimed that Rep. Mark Foley had sexual relationships with House pages. It was the “inappropriate communication” that got him.

It’s certainly not going to be a boring evening.

Update: Lee Stranahan writes a post that both Ace of Spades and I wish we had written:

If ‘benefit of the doubt’ isn’t good enough for the person you’re married to, then it’s not good enough for the practice of journalism. And by not acting as curious as a spouse – usually because of ideological agreement with the subject of inquiry – reporters aren’t doing their jobs.

Let’s apply this to Anthony Weiner…

Go read the rest, Lee deserves the hits for that one.

Hey MSM any old Twit(erer) understands what Rep Weiner’s numbers mean

Posted: May 29, 2011 by datechguy in politics, tech, twitter
Tags: , ,

by Datechguy | May 29th, 2011

I came to twitter very late in the game, so unlike many bloggers both bigger and smaller than me, my total number of followers is very small (787 as of this morning). To give you an idea of how that stands with someone of some celebrity; Joe Scarborough of MSNBC who I write about a bit has over 100,000 followers (100,935 to be exact as of this morning).

As a person relatively new to media I remember the first time a major paper started following me (NY Post) it was a big deal.

On May 27th I picked up Katheryn Jean Lopez of National Review as a follower and yesterday I picked up blogger and radio host Dana Loesch. I met Dana and her husband at CPAC I’ve never met Kathryn but I was extremely pleased to have them both follow me since it will allow me to contact them privately about appearing on my radio show DaTechGuy on DaRadio (AM 830 WCRN Worcester).

I also only follow 323 people as a rule I try to follow about half the number of people who follow me. That generates a plenty big twitter stream. I simply can’t see how people keep up with following thousands of people. To continue the above example; Joe Scarborough only follows 394 people. Keep that number in mind as it is important.

Now compared to Joe Scarborough I’m a person of very little celebrity. I’ve been blogging for maybe 2 1/2 years with a total of a bit over 550k hits overall between the old and the current blog. I’ve have had a radio show on a 50,000 Watt Station heard in 6 states for about 6 months. In Fitchburg Mass. that a big deal, in Worcester county it matters. In DC or NY that means very little.

By comparison Joe Scarborough served in congress, has a Morning Show on MSNBC that is watched by an awful lot of people. Writes a weekly commentary and is known by movers and shakers all over the country.

Why is this important? Well I just “followed” Beulah Garrett @beulahgg who mentioned me in a tweet a few hours ago. She will likely notice that I did so, she may or may not look at my profile and may or may not be impressed; as a great-grandmother she has likely seen enough that it takes more than me to impress her.

Now Let’s say Joe Scarborough choose to follow Ms. Garrett. Joe has over 100k followers, if he choose to follow Ms.Garrett I suspect she would take a lot more notice and might even be impressed.

What does Joe Scarborough and who follows or doesn’t follow me or Ms. Garrett have to do with Congressman Anthony Weiner of NY 9th district and his claim that someone hacked his twitter and photo accounts to send a photo of an erect penis in underwear to a young lady? Everything!

Congressman Weiner’s district is in NY. He is a man of some national prominence, a liberal who is not afraid of taking on conservatives directly. The phone message at his national office is personable and friendly. He is a regular guest on Morning Joe and is not shy about appearing anywhere. His national prominence dwarfs mine of course.

As of this moment 10:03 a.m. EST he has over 45K followers (45737 to be exact) I’m not one of them. He also follows only 194 people.

Until 48 hours ago one of those people was Genette Nicole Cordova tweetname @Gennette Noble the young lady who is at the center of this interesting event.

Just to remind you. Gennette Noble Gennette Nicole Cordova is a 21-year-old college student in Seattle Washington. She writes for the college newspaper. She seems a fairly attractive young girl and until 24 hours ago I knew absolutely nothing about her. I doubt many people on the net did. It would be fair to say that her prominence compared to me is of the same proportion of my prominence compared to Joe Scarborough.

Yet until 48 hours ago she was one of the under 200 people Congressman Wiener followed on Twitter.

Run that through your head for a second.

In the last 24 hours her facebook account has disappeared. Her twitter account have disappeared. Her byline has disappeared from college papers. This shows someone is taking great pains to remove her from the net.

If one wants to believe the congressman’s story one can say she is just trying to avoid further unwanted publicity. One might be able to rationalize that.

One can’t rationalize the fact that until all of this came out, a New York Congressman of some national prominence was following her on twitter. I’m 48 years old and was impressed by being followed by Dana Loesch and Kathryn Lopez tell me how impressed a 20 something year old college girl would be by being followed by a congressman 3000 miles away?

Any person who uses twitter understands with this means. They also know two other things:

1. If two people follow each other on twitter they can send private messages unseen by others

2..The difference between a private message and a public one is two characters

@rsmccain This message is public

d rsmccain this message is private

The difference is a “@” sign and the letter “d”

This is why the MSM is desperate to kill this quickly, that is why the left side of the sphere will be crying Andrew Breitbart till their voices grow horse hoarse, it’s also why this scandal will not be able to be contained by the left.

Joe Scarborough knows twitter, he also knows Andrew Weiner, if he chooses to look at the follower numbers he will know what it means. That bad for Anthony Weiner, the left and the MSM.

What’s worse for them? There are millions of people who use twitter who have absolutely no interest in politics, who when they see the numbers concerning followers also will understand exactly what it means.

The left and Rep Weiner have one long weekend to decide how they are going to handle this. I don’t envy them. They might be able to persuade the media to leave it alone but the meaning and details of this scandal can be understood by millions of people in 140 characters or less.

Update: Two quick things, Ace of Spades notes that at the time this broke Rep Weiner only followed 91 people, not the just under 200 people he follows now and asks.

What could possibly cause a big macher Congressman decide to follow a kid in college?

The photo at the link contains both reasons.

Secondly I am reminded of Robert Stacy McCain’s a reporter of National prominence who has covered the powerful for years reaction when Alyssa Milano re-tweeted him:

That’s how unusual it is for a nationally known reporter to re-tweeted by Alyssa Milano (and he worked hard for that re-tweet ,) how much less likely is it for a college student on a school paper to be followed by a congressman in NY?

Update 2: Instalanche! The perfect thing way to end a blog’s month, thanks Glenn. Hey Pundit readers you will want to check out yesterday’s radio show with news about a possible gop primary opponent to Scott Brown & my thoughts on Palin. With comedian Steven Crowder scheduled for next week I wonder if there is something funny in the news we can talk about?

Update 3: Somehow missed a piece of her name, thanks to Janetoo for catching it.

Note this piece was recovered from the internet archive and thus the comments aren’t there but you can read them at the wayback machine here.

Anthony Weiner and how to be a reporter

Posted: May 28, 2011 by datechguy in politics, tech
Tags: , ,

by Datechguy | May 28th, 2011

Our lesson for today on “How to be a Journalist” comes from Robert Stacy McCain.

Today word came out that there was an interesting tweet from the account of Representative Anthony Weiner that included a picture that was shall we say odd for a married congressman directed to a particular account on twitter.

Shortly after this came out Lee Stranaham at Patterico’s site noticed some interesting deletions:

So, around the same time he was tweeting about hockey, he sends the underwear photos to that woman at @GennetteNicole. Don’t bother looking there, though. Rep. Weiner’s photos are all erased. And Gennette seems to have deleted her entire Twitter account. And, it seems, her Facebook account.

Rep Weiner claims his account was hacked but the sudden deletion of the Twitter and Facebook accounts of the at the time unknown lady in question are interesting too.

The Daily Kos, being the Daily Kos has instantly decided that Andrew Breitbart is to blame (much in the same way that Sarah Palin is apparently to blame for the failure of Meagan McCain’s love life) and has started to spin that is is yet “another Breitbart lie” Which translated into human speak means: “A story we want the MSM to ignore.”

Enter Robert Stacy McCain, who has a history of not jumping to conclusions. Within a few hours he had identified the young lady in question and has asked actual relevant questions:

Was Rep. Weiner exchanging online messages with Ms. Cordova? If so, why? If this is all just a misunderstanding — if Rep. Weiner was the victim of hackers — why was Ms. Cordova the recipient of that message? Why would a hacker randomly select a student journalist in Washington State to send that to?

The congressman’s office can either answer those questions — and answer them PDQ — or else wait until every political reporter on the West Coast is camped out in front of Ms. Cordova’s house.

Mediate weighed in attacking Breitbart site meanwhile Stacy contacted Andrew directly and in the course of their conversation the following additional question arose?

But here is a question Breitbart posed during our phone conversation: If someone hacked Rep. Weiner’s online accounts, isn’t that a crime? Isn’t it, indeed, a national security threat?

OK, so has Rep. Weiner reported this crime to the police? Is the FBI investigating? When will we have a press conference at which Rep. Weiner vows to get to bottom of this crime against him, and bring the perpetrators to justice?

There is a dog there, you see. And as Sherlock Holmes might point out, that dog is not barking.

As for what I think? I’m not sure, it would be idiocy for a rep to do this but NY-26 was not too long ago and I’ve given up thinking that when it comes to sex congressional brains engage, but from the reaction of the left I think they believe it.

Consider: If this was all hokum the smart thing to do would be to wait, let the right stick out its collective neck and then when it turns out to be smoke and mirrors, or a hacking or even something else (Stacy has theorized an aide in his office who might have been pretending to be the congressman in order to score, that would make some sense) then they could demand massive retractions and apologies all around.

Yet instead the left has decided to play the “Andrew Breitbart can’t be trusted so you must ignore this story” card. This smacks of desperation. Presumably the left would have contacts with Rep Weiner’s office and would be able to confirm his story fairly easily. Yet instead of doing this, they are hitting Breitbart.

This reaction, more than anything else, speaks volumes.

So since Stacy is giving reporting lessons I took the liberty of calling congressman Weiner’s office, the recorded messaged referred me to a press number to call after hours. I called the number and the gentleman named Joe who answered claimed I had the wrong number so I called back the congressman’s office to confirm the number in question (it was correct) and called the press number again. It now goes directly to voice mail. I left my name and home and cell numbers at both locations, and I’ll let you know if anything pans out, but I found that reaction…interesting.

Update: No call back but Stacy’s Spectator article is a great example of straight news as well.

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