If what Weiner did was in no way illegal, immoral, or unethical

[Dreamer Tatum]

then it is impossible to affix blame to anyone for 'outing' him.

I'm tired of hearing people rail against Puritans and proclaim Weiner's absolute innocence on one hand, yet
shake fists at Breitbart for 'outing' him. If the former is true, the latter is irrelevant.

I say again: Weiner would still be in office if his Dem superiors had let it go.

[mzteris]

1. he'd still be in office

if he hadn't showed off what was in his pants and then lied about it.

His fault and his fault alone.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mzteris]

5. bullshit. n/t

[napoleon_in_rags]

6. What are these powerful techniques of Breitbart?

They seem to be: 1) catch somebody on tape or photo looking bad. 2) Publicize. Given the fact that these powerful techniques were well known to bring people down, the simple fact that Wiener carried them both out himself doesn't back up the idea that this was Breitbart did that much here.

[EFerrari]

15. Breitbart and some of his creeps set out months ago

to try to catch Weiner with an underage girl and when they didn't, they put up a sock puppet pretending to be an under aged girl. Just because Weiner was sexting doesn't mean these people weren't up to their tricks, too. Both happened.

[napoleon_in_rags]

16. Thanks for that info. Do you know how they got the rest of the pictures?

That's the piece I was wondering about. Were some of the girls he was sexting with affiliated with Brietbart?

[EFerrari]

17. I don't know that piece and won't add to the confusion

by speculating.

[napoleon_in_rags]

18. Oh, c'mon its the internet.

If you believe people here always take great care here to be honest and accurate I know where you can get some "free Viagra". :)

Well, my question is why aren't people looking into it then. Wiener's acts are obviously problematic, but if every time a Congressman goes to work he has hookers and porn stars crawling all over him, maybe we need to ask who the pimp is.

[EFerrari]

19. I agree, we should.

If I had to guess about how Breitbart got the other picture, my guess would be he was contacted by someone who had one. Most people don't know what a creep he is. He's treated like a real journalist by CNN, that's all they know.

[napoleon_in_rags]

20. Well, you could have a real sub-strata of sleaze operating when the stakes are so high.

If you can make geo-political changes every time somebody whips out their wang, than the incentive for getting people to whip out their wangs becomes awfully high... And the value of professionals trained to get people to do that becomes awfully high. Knowing sleaze, how that would work is through a lot of brokers or proxies, so pointing you're finger at Breitbart could be wrong, he could very well be a venue for other sleaze working.

It creeps me out though. Many years ago, I guess you could say I was thrust into being an activist, I had this 14 year old girl call me, trying to sleep with me. Of course I didn't, but it creeped me out because the whole thing seemed really forced really fake. I talked to her instead, and she told me she was raped at 11, and all these creepy experiences. I cut off contact with her because of her jailbait nature, but the whole situation stuck with me as being really creepy sad.

Remembering that today, the terrifying dimension of a political institution training girls for scandals casts a DARK shadow on that. People either need to make a choice, which is not to reward political sex scandals with changes, or to really investigate EVERYBODY involved, to make sure there isn't some real nastiness going on behind the scenes.

[EFerrari]

21. Breitbart seems to be the PR arm of whatever this is.

He's usually not the guy that does the filming or the recording or whatever but he's the one that packages it for the media.

[napoleon_in_rags]

22. That's the thing though, he could just be a reliable publisher.

When its a left wing guy, I could see a self-sent photo of a right wing guys privates circulating on left win sites. Also this resigning due to sex issues is a bi-partisan phenomenon, so what I'm actually more scared of is something like a scandal industry that effects everybody, has everybody up there running scared. People just give so much power to these scandals...

But really, in the end, it goes for me to what I've been saying here since this broke. For WHATEVER REASON the situation in DC is an absolute mess, you just can't deny. Our real self interest is in taking things into our own hands as much as possible in our communities.

[EFerrari]

24. I couldn't agree more about getting local.

And that politicians on both sides have egos that get them in trouble.

But so far, I haven't seen an operation like Breitbart's on the left. It's personal and dedicated and sleazy and somewhat sloppy. Remember, all but this last one of his big stories have been concocted.

[napoleon_in_rags]

25. "somewhat sloppy"

Well, that's kind of the thing: The other things were basically like interviews where somebody said something impolitic that was remixed to look more incriminating. This one kind of looked like it fell into his lap... But that could be wrong if: 1) the private sexting conversations were hacked 2) The girls were working for the organization. Either of those looks really bad for that organization. In the case of 1, you have that organization illegally watching people sext without consent - pervert peeping toms. In the case of 2, you have an organization basically filled with prostitutes and porn stars. Neither of these look good for the politician, but it actually looks worse for the organization.

I mean, I've heard this stuff happens, but its spy stuff. With spy stuff the organization doing it doesn't exist, so they aren't held to account for it. It operates behind the scenes. But these are public groups, publishing things publicly. They wouldn't risk the association with that level of sleaze, they just aren't that dumb. That's my speculation. But then again I said the same thing about Wiener, so who knows!

[Politicalboi]

28. I heard on the news that

The first woman to come out about the weiner picture had no idea what to do with it, so she asked her friend who happened to know Brightfart. My guess is this "friend" has probably known her since she started her chats with Weiner. But Weiner did this to himself. No one was forcing him to send those pictures. Had it just been sex talk, it wouldn't have been so effective. That picture is FOREVER.

[napoleon_in_rags]

30. I hear you.

That's the thing about all this, the total lack of paranoia regarding sending his wang over these networks on the part of Wiener. That's the part that gives me no regrets whatsoever about him stepping down. Its not about his sex acts, I have no idea what kind of arrangement he has with his wife, looking but not touching may be fair play with them. What I am critical of is his not knowing that this would be the inevitable consequence of those actions as a rep this in the world we live in. It shows a certain naivety about the depth of the insanity that's going on, and that disqualifies him. Reps I support have some kind of idea about how messed up things are right now.

[karynnj]

34. Actually - though the case with Weiner, that does not define the usual Breitbart

method. With Acorn, Sherrod and PBS, there instigators CREATED the looking bad part - and they editted the response of the officials to look as bad as possible.

This is not taping someone 24/7 and then editing the tapes to make them look stupid or bad, which could be get anyone. (What is amazing is that facing that there is so little out there on people like Obama, Kerry, and Gore.

[GodlessBiker]

2. I agree.

[OHdem10]

4. I do not think anyone thinks what Weiner did was ethical. It was

not illegal.

I think most of us have a problem with two things.

Media maintaining the SHUN, SHAME fever pitched attack
for at least a week. Early on Russert said if Weiner
did not resign they would be on his case continuously.

It appeared that the Media decided they were judge and
jury and the sentence was Get OUT.

More disgust is felt about the Democrats on the Hill
for the sorry way they handled it. They fed the Media
the Grist. Each day one Democrat would distance themselves
from Weiner. This was exactly what the Media needed
to keep the story alive.

The Media needed to be fed in order to keep the story going.


Republicans do not throw their own under the bus. Vitter
was a TV story for about 24 maybe 30 hours. You did not
have a Republican a day calling for his ouster.
Ensign did illegal and unethical things and would have
been expelled. He resigned as soon as he saw the handwriting
on the wall so they could not expel him. Smart.

No Republican ever called for Ensign's resignation. He too
got about about 24 hrs TV coverage.

The Republicans do not feed the Msdia in order to throw
a member out.

Honestly there are a lot of"pearl clutchers" and Shame
Shunners on DU. Puritans too---Want to put a scaret
Letter of Shame just like in the old days. So be it
it takes all kinds to make up DU.

[Little Star]

9. Do you feel that DUers should not be..

pearl clutchers or puritans when it comes to unethical Republicans also? I see plenty of people yelling "pearl clutcher" about Weinergate yet they wanted Vitter's head and are pissed they didn't get it.

Makes no sense to me.

[OHdem10]

11. I believe I said "so be it". It takes all kinds of people and persnalities

to make up an interesting Web site. On a website
people are entitled to their own opinion. I separate
Websites from TV Media and Congress. I was surprised
at the number but that is ok too.

[WillowTree]

27. What was unethical was accusing someone of a crime he knew had never happnened.

[leveymg]

7. Clarence Thomas committed a federal crime on multiple occasions. Indict Clarence Thomas

What Clarence Thomas has done is clearly illegal, immoral, and unethical.

I'm tired of hearing neo-Puritan railing against Weiner, who was outed by a GOP hit man specifically because the Congressman was exposing Thomas' law breaking and ethics violations.

Repeat after me: Indict Clarence Thomas.

Let Weiner be. He's been punished enough.

[global1]

8. Vitter Was Receiving A Paycheck From Us Taxpayers Money.......

So think about it - he used your tax money to pay for his prostitutes.

[MrsBrady]

10. I think it's unethical

to be married and send sex pics while you are married, but that's just me.


But I don't think he should have been forced out, either. That's total bull.


But I still don't understand why he would do that. It's just like asking for a scandal.

Please let me give the repukes some fuel while I decimate my family, career, and reputation. :sarcasm:

[Brianboru]

12. Weiner proved himself to be a lying fool.

He panicked. He lied. Then he continued to lie to friends and associates. A fool because he stuck to a lie he should have known would have been exposed with even a little research.

Mistakes can be forgiven. Repeated lying betrays a trust.

He had to go. Nobody could trust him anymore.

[LLStarks]

13. In this thread: Lying is ethical .nt.

[EFerrari]

14. Stalking, not outing.

I agree that it was the Dem leadership that pushed him out, and for their own reasons. His district didn't do that.

But what's more important than Weiner or the details, is the pattern of targeting and stalking that we've now seen over and over from that trash, Breitbart.

They got lucky with Weiner. But we've already seen that when they don't get lucky, they have no problem fabricating sh!t and we've seen how quickly the Democrats rush to toss the target off a cliff.

To their credit, the Democrats waited until they had more information before they tossed Weiner. I don't agree with their decision but they did better this time than they did with Sherrod or ACORN.

[RandomThoughts]

23. There were some great comments on the topic.

From many leaders, in my view.

[WillowTree]

26. No, it was just creepy, stupid, reckless & arrogant. And then he lied about it, which is dishonest

[SoDesuKa]

29. We Don't Know the Whole Story

People who should have rallied to Weiner's defense sat on their hands. It raises the possibility that there's a larger story out there. The grassroots "demonstration" demanding Weiner's ouster struck me as pro forma. Their hearts weren't in it, possibly because there's something creepy and voyeuristic about even taking note of Weiner's transgressions.

I'm unconvinced.

[B-Stupid]

31. illegal? No.

Immoral,or unethical? Not our call, only his wife can decide that.

[wickerwoman]

32. So if you're not a witch you can't begrudge the Inquisition?

[TheKentuckian]

33. Invasion of privacy. I don't want fuckwad disseminating me sitting on the front stoop

drinking lemonade.

It was also done with a purpose, the purpose was to take advantage of the hypocritical and hyper judgmental Puritan chunk of the society and of course to give the propaganda services something to talk about besides the epic and horrific events of the world, the crazy laws being passed, and our faltering nation.

You can be doing any number of acceptable to wonderful things that Breithart doesn't need to spread it around. Anthony could have been bangin the wife missionary style and that wouldn't be great for douchebag to spread around.

You are right on the last point, hence I hold his "superiors" in lower regard. I deem them of lower character and "morality" than before.

[robcon]

35. It was immoral and unethical for him to lie, and especially, to make false accusations.

We're well rid of him.