Anthony Weiner Cursed Out By Female Voter, Heckled By Homeless Man In Brooklyn

Add two more rings to the Weiner Circus:

A fuming and foul-mouthed former constituent barreled into an Anthony Weiner campaign stop Monday to berate the shamed Congressman, saying he had "no right" to show his face in Brooklyn.


As if that wasn't bad enough for Weiner - who has tried repeatedly to right his freefalling campaign - a man who reeked of booze jumped in the fray and started making crude penis jokes about the City Hall candidate's surname.

The campaign trail spectacle - just outside the Atlantic Avenue subway station in Brooklyn - happened just as Weiner had finished talking to a six year old girl and her mother.

Jane Borock, 35, marched over to Weiner - surrounded by about a dozen voters and campaign volunteers holding signs - and screamed "You are disgusting!"

She berated him about a lack of affordable housing and for taking part in a widely publicized sleepover in a city housing project that other candidates also attended. "F--- you!" she said.

The crowd gasped.

Weiner - who had been letting her rant without saying anything - told her to stop because children were near by. "You have no right to talk about little kids," she seethed.

Weiner tried to ignore her, and went back to talking to the crowd. "Hello folks!" he said.

Then a man joined in, "Are you a Weiner or a frankfurter?"

"He's nothing!" Borock said. At another point, she said, "F--- you all for voting for him."

Weiner - after at first ignoring her - started sparring with her. "Have a little self respect!" He said after she again swore in front of kids.

The male heckler - who said he lived on a bench in front of Barclays Center - proceeded to curse Weiner out. "When you look at him, you're looking at a d---k, man," he said.

Weiner tried to bush off the confrontation. "I love how crazy I make some people," he said.

Borock later said she was buying sheets and spotted Weiner across the street, so she decided to yell at him. She said she "grew up" voting for him, and had "a million" reasons to be disappointed.

She's particularly angry that "the hoopla around his penis" has become the focus of the mayors race.

This sounded like a job for Weiner's foul-mouthed communications director, Barbara Morgan.

Morgan returned to Weiner's side today for the first time since she called a former Weiner campaign intern a "slutbag," "cunt," and "fucking twat" in an interview with TPM.

If anybody could have handled the woman cursing on Atlantic Avenue at Weiner, it's Barbara Morgan.

And yet, Weiner didn't have her deal with the cursing woman.

Just seems to confirm that Weiner isn't any good at handling personnel.

In any case, when does Weiner get the point that people don't want him in the race anymore?

He had a particularly contentious release of his new campaign pamphlet today as he got snarky with the media and they got snarky back with him.

In addition, the release of his new campaign pamphlet was overshadowed by the release of his former sexting's partners porn video.

And then there was the showdown on Atlantic.

It has not been a good day for Anthony Weiner.

Why doesn't he get the message that the universe - and many in New York - want him to go away?

Can You Imagine This Guy Running The School System?

Weiner: I Am NOT Sexting Anybody!

Why couldn't he be this definitive before?

Anthony Weiner tells NBC 4 New York he is "100 percent not" having any type of online relationships with anyone now, and says for the first time he has not kept any records of his past lewd affairs.

"I don't have any of the records," Weiner said in an interview Friday. "I deleted everything."

 ...

He has been trailed at every appearance by reporters and photographers, and gave a series of interviews Friday in what appeared to be an attempt to close the door on the conversation. 

During his 15 minutes with NBC 4 New York, he grew weary of the topic, insisting at one point that the details of his illicit affairs, which he says ended about a year ago, didn't matter.

"The behavior that people know about, I did, over an extended period of time, with more than one person," Weiner said. "I just think at a certain point, OK, I think people know these embarrassing things about me. I think at a certain point now we have to have a conversation that goes to, alright, what else should people know?"

..

He went on to say he did not even like engaging in the relationships when he was in the midst of it.  "I didn't like when I was doing it, it was wrong to do, it was wrong to my wife, wrong period," he said.

Couple of things here: 

It's still hard to believe he's telling the complete truth here.

Why couldn't he be this definitive about his sexting-free timeline before?

Instead he's been evasive and slippery in his responses to these kinds of questions.

And we know from experience that when Anthony Weiner is evasive and slippery in his responses, it usually means he's hiding something.

Second point: He says he didn't even like the sexting when he was doing it, that he knew it was wrong but he kept doing it.

That sounds an awful lot like an addiction, doesn't it?

And yet, he says he's not addicted to sexting, says he's not a sex addict or compulsive.

If that's so, why did he keep sexting even when he didn't like doing it and knew it was wrong?

I used to be addicted to cigarettes.

For years I was sick of smoking, sick of smelling like smoke, sick of coughing up a lung in the morning, sick of spending my own money to kill myself  - but I couldn't stop smoking because I was addicted to the nicotine.

I suffered an allergy that affected my breathing and finally helped me to hit a bottom with the cigarettes and quit.

I used nicotine gum for about 8 weeks, weened myself off the gum, and have been smoke free for fourteen years.

I love that I am a non-smoker.

I also know that if I were to ever smoke even one cigarette ever again, I probably would go back to smoking a pack a day.

And I would hate myself for it but I wouldn't be able to help myself either.

That's the nature of addiction.

Anthony Weiner doesn't seem to understand that yet.

He says he has sought out the help of professionals, but apparently he hasn't learned that it's only in admitting the addiction and ridding yourself of denial that you come to recovery.

Weiner still sounds like he is very much in the denial stage and I would not be surprised in the near future to hear that he has taken up his Twitter communications once again.

Mulgrew Stumping With Thompson, Attacks Weiner/Spitzer As Too Sleazy To Enter A School

UFT President Michael Mulgrew took a blunt object from his woodshed today and used it on Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer:

At the ferry terminal on Staten Island, Thompson was met by U.F.T. members in blue shirts, who guided commuters over to meet him. U.F.T. president (and Staten Island resident) Michael Mulgrew was there, too.

"The buzz is being created, he's moving up," Mulgrew told me.

Mulgrew also complained about the attention being paid to Weiner and Spitzer.

"You have two candidates for citywide office that couldn't even pass the background check to be a teacher," he said. "And people are debating them as if they are serious candidates who should be given consideration where they wouldn't be allowed to step foot inside of a classroom or a school."

Mulgrew has a point, of course.

Weiner has admitted to texting with a seventeen year old, and while both he and she claim the communications were not sexual in any way, after repeatedly lying to and misleading people about his sexting habits, Weiner's credibility is not exactly at an all-time market high.

As a retired educator told him last week on Staten Island “As a former New York City Department of Education employee, 21 years as a teacher, nine years as an assistant principal, if I conducted myself in the manner you conducted yours, my job would’ve been gone."

As for Spitzer, last time I looked hiring hookers was a felony punishable by jail time and using state cell phones to hire hookers and state cars to drive you to the hotel to meet those hookers is a violation for state employees - even the governor.

Were Spitzer a teacher instead of a politician, he would have been fired from his DOE job when he was caught hiring hookers, arrested and prosecuted along with some of the other johns Spitzer himself put away.

He certainly wouldn't be entering a classroom or working in a school - and yet, if elected comptroller, he could be auditing school data while Weiner, if elected mayor, could be running the school system.

So Mulgrew has a point here about the hypocrisy of Weiner and Spitzer.

Of course, given the Mulgrew/Grady woodshed story that was never fully explained and the conflict of interest involving his sister, the NYCDOE and $11 million dollars, Michael Mulgrew shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a school either, let alone running the teachers union.

Anthony Weiner Admits He Used To Be "Carlos Danger"

It took an appearance on Univision for the candidate formerly knows as "Carlos Danger" to own up to that moniker:

Anthony Weiner was finally forced this morning to acknowledge he used the much-mocked nickname “Carlos Danger” for his latest batch of digital dalliances.

“Why did you pick a Hispanic name? And how dangerous were you really?” Mr. Weiner was asked during an awkward interview with Univision’s Despierta América.

The moniker, which has inspired endless videos, jokes and late night TV gags, has also drawn criticism from some in the Hispanic community, inducing from his long-shot rival Erick Salgado, who demanded an apology. But Mr. Weiner had previously managed to successfully ignore or side-step repeated inquiries about the nickname.

Pressed directly, however, the former congressman admitted the truth.

“It was a joke in my personal life between me and one person,” he responded.

“I’m not gonna comment on anything about the information that that person has chosen to release,” he added. “They can do whatever they want. They can try to harm me in any way that they want. I’m moving forward talking about the people of the City of New York.”

It was a joke in his personal life between him and one person.

Okay, that's a joke I don't want to hear any more details about.

In any case, he finally admitted to to using the name.

Like so much else about his behavior, he just should have owned up to this when it broke, gotten everything out into the open and said, "Okay there's the truth.  Accept my candidacy or reject it, but that's the whole truth about the sexting."

Instead Weiner has evaded questions, offered half-truths or out-and-out lies, and given the press the opportunity to follow him around trying to pull every sexting scandal detail out of him they can.

In short, Weiner's mostly gotten what he deserves in this media circus - had he been honest from the start, he could have avoided a lot of the pain he's caused himself.

Weiner Still Not Answering Sexting Questions Directly (RETRACTED - SEE NOTE)

Denis Hamill interviews Anthony Weiner in the NY Daily News:

Q. There is no one you are sexting now?
A. You can quibble about beginnings, middles and ends but what we're talking about is over a year ago.

A direct answer would be "No, Denis, I am not sexting with anyone now.  I haven't sexted with anybody for ______(amount of time.)"

Weiner doesn't respond like that.

He evades the meat of the question - "You can quibble with beginnings, middles and ends..."

Huh?

Hey, Anthony, it's a yes or no question.

"There is no one you are sexting now?"

"Nope, no one I'm sexting with now, Denis."

That's answering the question directly.

Weiner's response makes me think he's still hiding something here.

UPDATED NOTE: Here's why this post is being retracted:

Yesterday that fine paper known as the New York Daily News published an interview with Anthony Weiner conducted by DN columnist Denis Hamill.

That interview made news itself when it seemed from the transcription that Weiner was evading a question Hamill asked on whether Weiner was currently sexting with any strangers he met over the Internets.

Here is the passage in question as posted yesterday by the Daily News:

Q. There is no one you are sexting now?
A. You can quibble about beginnings, middles and ends but what we're talking about is over a year ago.

That interview set off a 36 hour media frenzy as almost every political reporter in the city followed Weiner around trying to get him to say whether he was sexting with anyone at the current time.

It turns out, however, that the geniuses at the Daily News transcribed that interview Q&A wrong.

According to Politico, here is how the audio Q&A went:

Hamill: "And it was over a year ago? There’s been nothing else?"
Weiner: "I mean, oh yeah, all that stuff is behind me. You can quibble about you know, beginnings, middles and ends, but it was basically a year ago."

Wow - that's a big difference from what the DN first posted yesterday.  From this exchange, it's obvious that Weiner is NOT evading the question and is unequivocally saying he is not sexting with any and hasn't for around a year or so.

The Daily News, being the quality paper it is, went with a front page apology to Weiner, begging his forgiveness for setting off that 36 hour media frenzy and...

Nah, just kidding - the scum at the DN went with a little note at the bottom of the interview:

On Wednesday, the Daily News posted a "clarification" at the bottom of Hamill's interview: "In an interview with Anthony Weiner in Tuesday’s paper, a question posed to the mayoral candidate and his answer were transcribed incorrectly," it read. "A question about sexting should have ended with: 'There’s been nothing else?' Weiner’s answer was: 'I mean, oh yeah, all that stuff is behind me. You can quibble about beginnings, middles and ends, but it was basically a year ago.'”

Classic DN - smear somebody either purposely or through a careless mistake, then basically ignore the whole thing by putting up a "clarification" that nobody will see.

I've been beating up on Weiner for a while now and did so after the DN interview appeared yesterday morning.

Let me take this opportunity to retract this post -given the new realities around the interview, it's wrong.

Shame the DN doesn't do the same.

Anthony Weiner Grows Camera-Shy

NY1 reports that Weiner wouldn't let the press cover his talk to a Brooklyn church congregation on Sunday, making journalists wait outside until his speech was over.

Weiner used to covet all the press coverage he could get, but after getting beat up in the press all last week by both journalists and voters (especially this one), suddenly Weiner is getting camera-shy.

Ironic, no?

In other Weiner news, the Clintons turned against both Anthony and Hillary's adopted step-daughter Huma and the Democratic Party establishment called for Weiner to drop out of the race, with one prominent Dem consultant saying he's "a waste of space."

Ouch.

Weiner told reporters yesterday that he will not drop out of the race and said more volunteers are coming forward to join his campaign even as news broke that his campaign manager quit over the sexting scandal redux.

With the Clintons turning on him, he will not be able to raise any big money for his campaign.

He has no institutional support among the professional political class, no union support.

His GOTV operation will be amateur at best.

Now he has no campaign manager.

The Weiner campaign seems to consist of Anthony, Huma, their one year old son and a few masochist volunteers.

Meanwhile sexting scandal news continues to break every day, forcing Weiner to stay on the defensive (the latest two examples are here and here.)

These are not auspicious signs that he can turn this around any time soon.

It's true that Weiner's name will be on the ballot no matter what he does because it's too late to take it off before the primary.

But for all effective purposes, whether he stays in or not, Weiner's finished.

That he wouldn't let the press cover his talk to a Sunday church congregation is just the latest sign of that.

Weiner's Campaign Manager Quits

They're jumping off the sinking ship:

In a new sign of tumult within Anthony D. Weiner’s embattled political operation, his campaign manager has quit, leaving his already skeletal team without a day-to-day leader. 

According to two people told of the decision, the campaign manager, Danny Kedem, no longer wished to oversee Mr. Weiner’s bid for New York mayor after a week of bruising revelations about the candidate’s latest online conduct. The two people, who have close ties to the campaign, did not want to be identified because they were disclosing confidential conversations. 

 ...

The move suggests that even as Mr. Weiner vows to press ahead with his candidacy, there are mounting doubts about its political viability within his own campaign. 

Mr. Weiner’s staff was jolted by his admission last week that his habit of sending raunchy online photographs and messages to women had persisted long after he resigned from Congress in 2011. The disclosures clashed with Mr. Weiner’s claims that he had been rehabilitated after undergoing therapy and his suggestion that such behavior had long ago stopped. 

Mr. Kedem had helped guide Mr. Weiner’s candidacy, originally considered a long shot, to the top of the polls in the mayoral field before last week. 

Not long ago, Mr. Kedem made clear he had no qualms about his new job. He sent an e-mail to dozens of his associates in late June seeking volunteers and financial contributions for Mr. Weiner’s mayoral bid. “I am really proud to work for Anthony,” he wrote. 

His departure is a hit to a campaign that was short of experienced staff members, because of Mr. Weiner’s scandal and his reputation as difficult boss.

Weiner can decide he's not dropping out of the race all he wants.

If everybody around him drops out and the only people working for his campaign are Huma and Anthony, that's effectively Weiner dropping out of the race.

Video Of Educator Questioning Anthony Weiner's Moral Authority

Weiner's dishonesty runs so deep that he tries to deflect her argument by saying "But this was in the privacy of my own home" when he knows that if a teacher were doing this sort of thing in "the privacy of their own homes," they STILL would be fired for moral indecency, after they were dragged through the mud in the Post and Daily News.

Hell, a teacher just needs to be accused of this sort of thing to get dragged through the mud in the Daily News and Post and have Campbell Brown call for his/her firing - no guilty verdict needed for that.

It was good to read about Peg Grunda calling Anthony Weiner out yesterday, but it's even better to see the video.

Former Teacher/Assistant Principal Confronts Anthony Weiner Over Character Issue

Many people have been saying for awhile here in the edu-blogosphere that if a teacher conducted himself/herself the way Anthony Weiner has conducted himself over the past three years, he/she would be fired.

Today on Staten Island, Weiner was confronted by a teacher who told him this to his face:

During a press event this afternoon in Tottenville, a local resident directly and repeatedly confronted Mr. Weiner over his escalating controversy, grilling the former congressman and questioning his “moral authority” as more than a dozen cameras clicked away.

Mr. Weiner was in the neighborhood to discuss home repair issues in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. But the media, which traveled in droves to the far-flung corner of the borough, was far more interested in Mr. Weiner’s scandals, which have driven national headlines all week.

“As a former New York City Department of Education employee, 21 years as a teacher, nine years as an assistant principal, if I conducted myself in the manner you conducted yours, my job would’ve been gone,” said resident Peg Grunda, a thicket of reporters ringing her and Mr. Weiner.

Mr. Weiner tried to defend himself, returning to a point he has often made: that his texting was a personal, private failing.

“In the privacy of your home?” Mr. Weiner asked the woman.

“In the privacy of my home,” she responded.

“I respect your decision,” he said.

But the woman wasn’t finished.

“Standing there, it wouldn’t have mattered if one year went by or five years went by. I don’t quite understand how you would have the moral authority as the head administrator in this city to oversee employees when your standard of conduct is so much lower than the standard of conduct that’s expected of us,” Ms. Grunda continued.

“Are you not voting for me?” Mr. Weiner asked.

“I would not vote for you, sir,” she affirmed.

“I want to let other people make that decision, fair enough?” asked Mr. Weiner. “My view is that I want to let your neighbors make their decision for themselves based on all the information they have … You wouldn’t deny them the right to make their decisions, would you?”

At that point, a Fox News reporter interrupted to reiterate Ms. Grunda’s question and insisted Mr. Weiner was not answering. After a brief back-and-forth, the ex-congressman invited her to ask another question.

“I know this is going to sound a little crass, sir, how do you present yourself on the public stage?” she inquired.

Mr. Weiner tried to pivot the conversation, arguing that people should be judging him based on the ideas he’s presented or his record, rather than the salacious details of his sexting controversy.

“I need people all the time to say to me, ‘I don’t like you Mr. Weiner because of something in your background, because of a vote you cast, something in your ideas book,” he said as Ms. Grunda attempted to get a word in and steer the conversation back to his scandal. “That’s what elections are. Politicians, people running for office, need people that like them. Sometimes they need people that don’t. That’s the way the process works. But that does not mean that I stop running because I run into a person who respectfully asks me a question and they disagree with me.”

Mr. Weiner, telling Ms. Grunda his mother was a schoolteacher, repeated that he cared about the struggles of the middle class. But she was unconvinced.

“Quite honestly sir, I think you care more about your ego then anything else,” she said.

Reporters, naturally, flocked to Ms. Grunda, whose home suffered significant storm damage last year, to get her followup reaction to the exchange.

“I was offended by the tone he took with me, But then again, I can’t say I was surprised. It seems his tone with women leaves something to be desired,” she said.

That was a great job by Peg Grunda to let Weiner know the double standard educators live with

He is unable to hear it, of course, because he doesn't think he did anything wrong.

That's often the case with these people in charge.

One standard for them, another one for everyone else.

And as NYC Educator keeps pointing out, a special standard for educators where accusation alone proves guilt.

NY Post: Anthony Weiner's Brother Called Weiner's Sexting Partner To See If She Needed To Be "Neutralized"

The sleaze factor in the Weiner saga just got sleazier:

Anthony Weiner’s chef brother turned up the heat on the mayoral wannabe’s secret online paramour just weeks before the sexting pol announced his mayoral bid, according to a longtime confidante of the scorned beauty.

Jason Weiner, who owns Manhattan bistro Almond, reached out to Anthony’s sexting partner, Sydney Leathers, on April 12 — just two days after Weiner’s strategic comeback interview ran in The New York Times Magazine — and grilled her on intentions, Lou Colagiovanni, a Vegas-based political activist, told The Post.

“He was trying to see if she was going to be a problem,” Colagiovanni said. “She said Jason was trying to take her temperature.”

Leathers confessed her illicit six month cyber affair with Weiner to Colagiovanni the same day, he said.

Colagiovanni had known Leathers since 2010, when the Indiana-bred political junkie started working for him as a contact creator for his liberal Facebook site, “We Survived Bush. You’ll Survive Obama (WSBYSO.)” Leathers worked for him until the scandal broke.

“She was scared, and very shaken. She got freaked out,” Colagiovanni said about Jason Weiner’s efforts. “She had never met the brother, and here he was contacting her. She had never spoken with him before. She told me about her affair, and that she thought they were trying to find out who they needed to keep quiet.”

“He was trying to do damage control.”

“My impression was that he was trying to smooth her out, make sure there weren’t going to be any issues. I got the impression that Weiner and his brother were going around trying to find out if there was anyone who needed to be neutralized.”

It was clear, Colagiovanni said, that Jason Weiner was acting as his brother’s wingman, contacting Leathers at Anthony’s request.

“It seemed pretty clear what Weiner was having his brother do. They were figuring out how to protect Weiner. I’m sure they knew there were other women out there.”

Weiner's brother denied the Post report and Politicker reports that Anthony Weiner himself says there's no truth to the Post report.

Anthony Weiner's truthfulness quotient isn't too high these days, so hard to know what happened here.

But I'm betting we'll learn more in the days ahead.

The Anthony Weiner Story just never ends.

A Bad Day For Anthony Weiner

Here's how the NY Times described his day:

Anthony D. Weiner’s mayoral campaign entered a dark and chaotic phase on Thursday as he admitted to having explicit online relationships with at least three women since he left Congress, and the woman at the center of the latest scandal appeared on television, remembering him as a “perpetually horny middle-aged man.” 

Mr. Weiner, appearing shaken and at times rambling as he faced reporters, revised his previous estimate of the total number of women with whom he had engaged in sexual encounters online to 10, up from 6. 

But in a sign of how difficult the furor over his behavior may be to contain, he made clear he could not say for certain how many women or lewd images might yet surface. 

“There are more than — there are a few,” Mr. Weiner, a Democrat, said with a stammer. “I don’t have a specific number for you.” Later, he tried to explain the sequence of his Internet relationships: “Sometimes they didn’t go consistently. Whatever.” 

Mr. Weiner’s once-resurgent political standing in New York City seemed to erode by the moment, as more graphic pictures of his penis appeared online and his conduct and lack of candor were denounced from the campaign trail to the halls of Congress. 

Not a good day for Mr. Weiner - in a recent poll, his unfavorables are higher now than before he entered the race.

In the Daily News, Mike Lupica wonders if Weiner sexted with any underage girls.

It behooves me to remind you of that seventeen year old he was texting with back in 2011.

He has said he never engaged in any sexual conversations or communications with her, never sent her any lewd photos.

Do you believe him?

He's lied more times than Richard Nixon.

The truth is, it's completely believable that he engaged in that sort of thing.

Where's Campbell Brown and Ben "Perv Teacher" Chapman when you need them to do some of their specialty journalism?

Maybe if Weiner were a teacher they'd go after him...

What Should We Tell The Kids?

TheDirty.com posted the Weiner penis photos today, sans censorship blot.

I won't post those photos, but you can go and look at them if you wish.

In NYC schools, we tell our students that they must be good and thoughtful digital citizens, they must think through whatever they post on the Internet or whatever pictures they send on their phones.

If Anthony Weiner were to be elected mayor of NYC, what do we tell them about digital citizenship?

Listen, I will cop to once or twice sending an email in anger that I later wished I could take back.

On occasion I've posted something on the blog that wasn't well thought out and later wished I could take that back too.

That kind of thing happens because I'm human and make mistakes.

But interestingly enough, I have tried to learn from those instances and be as thoughtful and conscious as I can be about what I write and send along on the Internet.

You see, that's called learning from past foibles so that you can avoid making them again.

Weiner, on the other hand, went from sending underwear crotch shots pre-resignation to sending full monty shots post-resignation.

I dunno if it's arrogance, addiction, insanity or a combination of all three, but it's clear this guy should not be in charge of anything.

They say addiction is a chronic condition, that it just gets worse and worse until it's treated.

Weiner's sexting trajectory definitely shows that chronic pattern.

The lying, the denial, the delusional thinking he engages in are also signs of serious addiction problems.

Maybe after this campaign is over, he'll finally hit his bottom, get honest with himself and go and actually work a program of recovery.

That, in the end, would be the best thing that could happen and, in a very real way, that wouldn't be a bad thing to tell the kids about.

Anthony Weiner Admits To Two More Post-Resignation Sexting Partners

If Weiner saw this run for mayor as an attempt at redemption and political resurrection, it isn't working out as planned:

Anthony Weiner admitted this afternoon to engaging in lewd sexual exchanges with as many as three women after he resigned from Congress, now putting his total number of online sexual exploits at between six and 10.

Mr. Weiner was once again mobbed by reporters as he attempted to regain his mayoral campaign’s precipitous footing in the wake of new revelations that his sexting continued well over a year after his resignation—and after he and his wife told People magazine he’d become a new man.

Addressing the press at a Jewish food pantry in Flatbush, Brooklyn, Mr. Weiner–who revealed he is still in therapy–was pressed to settle the record on exactly how many women he’d sent lewd texts and photos to.

At first he said, “I don’t have a specific number for you.”

But then he began tallying.

“There are a few. I said at the time of my resignation there were six. I don’t think in total there are more,” he said, before pausing to explain that it’s possible conversations he considered vanilla were misinterpreted. “All I can say to them is … it’s not dozens and dozens. It’s six to 10, I suppose. But I can’t tell you absolutely what someone else is going to consider inappropriate or not.”

As for the number after his resignation, he said, “I don’t believe I had any more than three.

The relentless grilling came as Mr. Weiner attempted–with little success–to change the conversation away from his consuming sex scandal and back to his ideas, including the planned topic of the press conference: creating a cabinet-level “non-profit czar.”

Instead, he was peppered with questions, forcing him to declare again and again that the sexting was truly behind him.

“Look, I have said … there are multiple women over an extended period of time. And these things are very wrong, I deeply regret them. I worked through them with my wife. They’re behind me. That has not changed,” he said, insisting that he avoided discussing more specifics of the timing earlier because he didn’t “want to create a maelstrom for people on the other side.”

“The point is, they’re behind me. It’s a year ago, at least. And I’ve worked through these things, the personal failings that have now caused me great embarrassment because they’ve become public,” he said.

Politicker asked Mr. Weiner how the public could possibly trust him when he’d proclaimed a year ago that the scandal was behind him, too–something we now know was false. But Mr. Weiner maintains he’d been truthful about his misdeeds.

“Well actually, when I announced for mayor and had conversations with many people, many citizens, just about any member of the press that wanted to ask me these questions, I said that these things were behind me. They were then. They are now,” he said. “Now citizens have to decide whether this personal behavior—when one thing happened or it didn’t happen–is important to them. I understand that. All I’m saying is that these things were personal in nature. I’ve worked them out between me and my wife and I’ve gotten them behind me. They’re been behind me for some time now. And it wasn’t until they were behind me that I decided to run for mayor.”

He added, “I understand that might not be a satisfying answer. That people might want names and serial number and dates and texts. But someone else might have to provide that for you because I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to comment on the specifics of these things.”

He's still not coming completely clean, he's still not revealing the whole truth, he's still playing fast and loose with his recovery timeline and, as such, the press is not going to stop feeding on him like chum in a shark tank.

What did he think was going to happen when he started to plan his run for City Hall?

Did he think he could finesse this stuff when it came out?

Did he not care because he was so desperate for attention?

Spitzer's Hiding Something Too

Scandal-scarred Eliot Spitzer got into the race for NYC comptroller after he saw the success scandal-scarred Anthony Weiner was having running for NYC mayor.

Weiner was receiving favorable news coverage and a friendly reception on the campaign trail, so Spitzer figured why the hell not jump into the race for comptroller and try and resurrect his own political career.

Spitzer and Weiner were connected this campaign cycle even before the revelations that Anthony Weiner was less than forthcoming about his sexting behavior broke this week.

At first when Spitzer jumped into the race, the connection between he and Weiner helped him.

After all, if Weiner could be making such a good showing on the campaign trail post-scandal, with some polls showing him leading the Democratic primary contest and voters saying they could envision him as mayor, didn't that bode well for Spitzer's chances in the comptroller's race?

And indeed, polls taken after Spitzer entered the race showed him leading his opponent, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, by a double digit margin.

But now that voters have been confronted with new pictures of Anthony Weiner's penis that Weiner sent over the Internet to a stranger just last year, when he was already devising a run for mayor, the connection between Spitzer and Weiner is no longer helping Eliot:

It has come to this in New York City’s election — a reporter asked Eliot Spitzer on Wednesday whether he has slept with prostitutes since resigning as governor.

“Absolutely not,” Spitzer said as he greeted morning commuters on Staten Island. He added, “I’m done answering this question."

...

Spitzer found his political comeback overshadowed this week by the new sexting scandal buffeting former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s mayoral dreams.

But Spitzer could not leave his own scandalous past behind.

Some analysts said Weiner’s new troubles pose a risk to Spitzer’s campaign for city controller, by reminding voters of the bad-boy behavior that got Spitzer into hot water and raising questions in the minds of voters whether he has changed his ways.

Spitzer was forced to step down as governor in 2008 amid revelations he used the services of high-priced call girls.

“I think when people think about it, they’ll ask, ‘How do we know Spitzer is over his problem? Did this leopard change his spots? Maybe he’s just like Weiner,’” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Spitzer took pains Wednesday to distance himself from Weiner’s sexcapades

The question is, given the scandal connection between the two, can Spitzer really distance himself from Weiner's sexcapades?

Spitzer is a lot smarter than Weiner so you would think he's smart enough to know if he was still hiring prostitutes post-resignation that would pose a problem for him in this race - especially because unlike Weiner, Spitzer has a dedicated cadre of Wall Street people, hedge fundies, and union leaders who hate his guts and are looking to destroy him.

He has to know that they've hired detectives to look into him and dig up any dirt they can use to torpedo his bid for comptroller. 

That said, Spitzer is also as arrogant a man as Weiner and his behavior as governor suggests he may be as pathological as Weiner as well, since he had to know his reckless behavior hiring hookers when he was governor would eventually be exposed given how many enemies he has and how badly his governorship was going.

So, let's ask the question again:

Has Eliot Spitzer hired any prostitutes since he resigned his governorship back in 2008?

He is on record now unequivocally saying he has not.

But he's also on record saying that he's not going to answer that question anymore.

That kind of defiance around the prostitute issue raises more questions, however, and suggests that Eliot may not be as genuine and truthful as he wants us to think he is being over this matter.

Weiner has played fast and loose with the truth, claiming he told the public more sexting photos and text would surface but neglecting to note that these would be photos and sexts sent after his resignation from Congress.

The way Spitzer is responding to these questions around his use of prostitutes, now defiantly saying he won't answer the prostitute question as if it's actually an affront for anybody to ask it after we have learned of Weiner's post-resignation sexting adventures, smells fishy and suggests he may be hiding something here.

If I'm right about this and he is hiding something or playing fast and loose with the truth around his use of prostitutes, that will come out in the end.

Spitzer's has lot of enemies who want to do him in, so if he is hiding something or lying, we'll know soon enough.

But if I were him and I were trying to distance myself from Weiner and convince the public that I had truly rehabilitated myself post-resignation, I don't think I would get so testy and defensive when people ask legitimate questions over when I stopped hiring prostitutes.

If Carlos Danger Takes Mayoral Control Of The NYC School System...

...here's what we can expect:
 

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Truly terrifying.

Weiner Thought The Sexting Revelations Would Come Out Late In The Campaign

It's John Edwards all over again.

Tonight in another slippery interview given by Anthony Weiner, he tells Politicker he knew these sexting revelations would come out, he just thought they would be revealed later in the campaign, closer to the election:

After a brief testimony about the state of public housing this evening, former Congressman Anthony Weiner was mobbed by the media once again, seeking more answers about the online sex scandal that continues to unfold.

When asked about the last 24 hours of his life, Mr. Weiner didn’t pretend that it had been easy.

“It’s been rough. These are things I brought upon myself,” Mr. Weiner solemnly told reporters. “And I thought they were going to come out towards the end of the campaign. And some of them have. So look, I’m pressing forward. I’m running a campaign based on issues. I’m going to keep doing that.”

As some of us noted earlier in this campaign, if Weiner had won a runoff with one of the other Democratic candidates and been the nominee against Joe Lhota, these revelations would have ensured that we got another four years of a Republican mayor in NYC.

Thank God the revelations came out now, before the September primary, giving the press the opportunity to look for more damaging skeletons in Mr. Weiner's tech closet and pretty much ensuring that Anthony Weiner will not be the Democratic nominee for mayor.

As it is, it's clear from the way he's answering questions that he knows more damaging revelations are to come:

During the presser, which lasted less than five minutes, Mr. Weiner didn’t respond to repeated questions from reporters about the existence of other online aliases. He also didn’t say anything when Politicker asked how many women he’d been involved with. Mr. Weiner previously alleged that there were six.

Afterwards, however, he did finally provide a rough date for when the sexting ended.

“Last summer,” he said. “Yeah, roughly August. Maybe even a little earlier than that.”

TheDirty.com report has Anthony still sexting with his 22 year old partner in November of 2012, cutting it off with her in December 2012, then contacting her again in April 2013, so right off the bat we have an evasion at best.

Then there's his refusal to say whether he had other aliases on line, how many sexting partners he had, etc.

We heard tonight from Nik Richie at TheDirty.com that more will come out soon about Weiner and his relationship with the 22 year old sexting partner.

You have to wonder when revelations about Weiner using another alias to sext with another woman in the past year will come out.

Judging by the way he's answering questions, I bet it won't be long.

Weiner's delusional, so maybe he really did think this run would repair his image and set him up or future office.

Instead it has ensured his place of honor as a national punchline and emblem of addiction and dysfunction.

Again, thank God this all came out now before the primary.

More Damaging Material On Anthony Weiner To Be Released In Coming Days

Oh goodie - Nik Richie says TheDirty.com will be publishing more damaging revelations about Anthony Weiner in the next few days.

Additional information came out today in the NY times article linked above that was damaging enough:

The racy online conversations that have jeopardized Anthony D. Weiner’s campaign for mayor of New York began with an angry Facebook message, according to the editor of a blog who has communicated with the young woman involved. 

Not long after Mr. Weiner resigned from Congress, the 22-year-old woman reached out to express her disappointment in him. 

Mr. Weiner eventually responded and, at his urging, their exchanges veered from politics to sex within a week, as he demanded dozens of explicit photographs, said Nik Richie, the editor of The Dirty, the blog that first documented the exchanges. 

“He started putting the sexual moves on her and she just went with it,” Mr. Richie said on Tuesday night in an interview. 

That account suggests that Mr. Weiner’s interactions with the woman, a partisan Democrat from Indiana who thought of him as a hero, fit his longstanding pattern. In rapid and reckless fashion, he sought to transform casual conversations with female fans into graphically sexual exchanges, frequently laced with lewd language and bawdy images, the women have said in interviews. 

...

In the interview, Mr. Richie suggested his Web site would publish new and embarrassing information about the relationship in the coming days. 

Mr. Richie said the woman told him that during the relationship, which lasted months, Mr. Weiner discussed with her his plans to run for mayor. It is unclear, though, when that exchange took place.

According to the woman, Mr. Richie said, Mr. Weiner had told her that he loved her and discussed the possibility of securing a place for them to meet in Chicago. 

In their conversations, Mr. Richie said, Mr. Weiner repeatedly sought photographs of the woman. “He would demand pictures almost every day,” Mr. Richie said. “He always wanted pictures with heels in them. He loved her heels.” 

He estimated that the woman sent Mr. Weiner about 35 images. The Dirty has reported that Mr. Weiner sent an image of his penis to the woman.

While Weiner is sexting with this woman and sending photos of his penis to her, he's readying his run for mayor, giving interviews in People where he says he's recovered and the like.

Today he doesn't see anything wrong with that duplicity.

I believe that he doesn't see any duplicity in it because he is so psychologically damaged that he can't see it.

That's enough to disqualify him for mayor.

He's hanging on in the race for now, but I'm hoping the new revelations to come will knock hin down for the count.

And I'm still wondering when the press is going to look into the sexting with the seventeen year old thing.

The door is open for that kind of inquiry now that Anthony and Huma have been joined by the latest photos of Anthony's penis on the ballot.

Anthony Weiner Explains Why He Just Won't Go Away

He says he's staying the race for you, dear New Yorker:

Friend,

When I decided to run for mayor this year I knew it would be tough. I knew that the mistakes of my personal life would make things difficult for me and for my family. From the very beginning, some people insisted that I shouldn’t even be allowed to run.

I believe that question should be left to the voters. This fight is too important to leave New Yorkers without a choice. And I want to give them the power to decide who their Mayor will be.

I have waged a campaign focused on fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it there. I published a book of 64 ideas on everything from lowering taxes on New York families to creating the first ever single-payer health care plan for our city. Day after day, I’ve visited citizens who have been hungry for a voice after years of feeling marginalized or ignored.

New Yorkers responded in resounding ways. They volunteered for our campaign. They submitted their own ideas. They made thousands of small donations. And they showed up on street corners, subway stations and community centers to say hello or give me a piece of their mind.

Now, with 47 days left until the primary, some powerful voices are making it clear that they still don’t want me to run. Yesterday’s news has given them fresh fodder.
I owe it to you to try to explain.

Sending these embarrassing messages to women online, whom I never met, was a personal failing that was hurtful to my wife and a part of my life that Huma and I have put behind us. These things I did, as you have read in the papers, didn’t happen once. It was a terrible mistake that I unfortunately returned to during a rough time in our marriage. After a lot of reflection, some professional help, and a general reorientation of my life, Huma has given me a second chance. I will never stop being grateful for that.
Before and after announcing my run for Mayor, I repeatedly answered every question about these mistakes. I was clear that these relationships took place over an extended period of time with more than one person. I regret not saying explicitly when these exchanges happened.

But the bottom line is that the “news” today is about my past life.

Some people may find my personal life reason not to listen to me. I completely understand that some may not ever even consider voting for me. But I’m going to keep trying to bring them around and earn their support. This fight is too important to give up, because I’ve had embarrassing personal things become public.

This campaign isn’t about me. It’s about a great city that is beginning to lose its mantle as the Capital of the Middle Class. It’s about the challenge of finding affordable housing, a good job with benefits and a public school that attracts the greatest teachers and produces the smartest kids. This race for Mayor isn’t about me. It’s about you. And I’ll never lose sight of that.

New Yorkers don’t quit, and I’ll never quit on you.

Sincerely,

Anthony

One of the most narcissistic politicians on the planet, a guy who has no core political values other than his own self-aggrandizement and career advancement, is staying in the mayor's race after a recent set of sexting photos and texts surface and expose him as a liar because "This race for Mayor isn’t about me. It’s about you."

Oh, and the news about the sexting isn't about "today" - it's about his "past" life.

You know, like April, when he last contacted his sexting partner.

Weiner truly is a delusional, pathological man living in a fantasy world.

God help us all if he were actually elected mayor.

Anthony Weiner Is Wrong - Everything HAS Changed

At yesterday's press conference to address the surfacing of new photos of his penis sent to a female he met online after he resigned from Congress, Anthony Weiner stated that not much has changed since Monday:

"I'm surprised more things hadn't come out sooner," Weiner said Tuesday. "Things aren't that much different than they were yesterday."

"I said there were more things out there," he continued. "We went through this process and worked through some of these challenges and we put it behind us."

Weiner said he was not dropping out of the race for City Hall yesterday and he reiterated that statement today:

A relaxed Anthony Weiner strolled out of his Gramercy Park apartment Wednesday and said that voters are more interested in jobs and affordable housing than the new pics of his private parts.

A day after his second sexting scandal in two years hit the headlines, Weiner said he planned to spend the day catching up on phone calls, working on his new policy book and brushing up on the issues for an evening candidates forum.

When asked about how the latest revelations are affecting him, he said, “I'm fine. I've got an amazing wife and child upstairs. I've got a comfortable life.”

He said that those calling for him to quit the mayoral race never wanted him in.

“A lot of the same people who weren't crazy about me running in the first place now want me to get out, including my opponents,” the former Democratic congressman said.

Despite the latest cringe-fest, Weiner said he expects the “conversation” among voters to stay on moving the city forward.

“This is about the city and about the aspirations of people to make things better,” he said.

As I suspected, Weiner's too arrogant and delusional to do anything other than try and hang on in this race, but he is wrong if he thinks that "Things aren't that much different than they were yesterday."

 

For one thing, the tone and tenor of the press coverage has changed.

 

Where once much of the press were enabling his campaign with fluff pieces about his family life (the People magazine article from last summer, the NY Times piece that unofficially kicked off his campaign) and how well he was being received on the campaign trail by potential voters, his press coverage has now turned decidedly negative.

 

The NY Times and the NY Daily News editorial boards called for Weiner to drop out of the race today.  

 

The NY Post, which had been supportive of his anti-union policy initiatives, didn't quite call for his dropping out but called him a "weasel" and suggested he doesn't have the character to be mayor.

 

And then there are the columnists and commentators in the newspapers and on the political sites saying things like this kind of thing from Michelle Cottle at the Daily Beast:

Anthony is assuring us that all of this is old news. That he’d already told us there were still pictures out there. That, really, as he stressed at yesterday evening’s press conference on the revelations, this doesn’t change much of anything. 

But perhaps recognizing that some people might feel like they had heard this song and dance before, this time Weiner added a fresh wrinkle. When his original sexting scandal broke, the lovely Huma promptly went underground, refusing to stand by her husband’s side during the ritual public mea culpa. But with this new installment, Weinergate 2.0 if you will, Abedin not only stood next to Weiner at the press conference, she took her turn lecturing us all that this is a private matter. Anthony has made some “horrible mistakes,” she allowed. “But I do very strongly believe that this is between us and our marriage.”

How loyal. How poignant. Somewhere in the distance, I swear I heard Hillary Clinton’s heart break for her longtime friend and surrogate daughter.

Alas, in this case, Abedin is so very wrong. This is not just about her and Anthony and their relationship. He wants a life in politics. Wants it so very, very badly. And yet, even after he was driven from Congress, even after he went into therapy, even after he and Abedin began peddling the narrative of their Long Road Back, even after he had started plotting his rehabilitation tour, the man could not keep his dick in his pants and out of cyberspace. We are not talking here about a one-time screw up or even a series of affairs. Nope. This is a kink that Weiner has indulged since before his marriage and even after it vaporized his congressional career and turned him into a national laughingstock—a kink that, by its very definition, leaves an X-rated, irrefutable, and more than slightly icky e-trail.

This is the definition of an ungovernable impulse, my friends, and, as such, it is very much the business of the good people of New York. Because, you know what? In all likelihood, Weiner is going to do this again. No matter how earnest and impassioned his apologies to us and to his wife, and no matter how very sorry he may believe himself to be, the guy is going to wake up one fine morning, look down in awe and wonder at his junk, and think, I just gotta share this with someone new!

If he’s at home with Huma and little Jordan in their Park Avenue South apartment, no biggie. But if he goes off on a sexting spree while kicking it in Gracie Mansion, just think of the potential for blackmail and general civic dysfunction. (If I were a political foe—or, say, someone with a big-ticket city contract on the line—I’d be sprinkling Twitter with honeypot traps left and right.) And please tell me that there’s not anyone left out there who still believes that putting a sexually predatory man in high elective office is going to serve as a deterrent.

None of which is to say that New Yorkers shouldn’t vote for Weiner if they decide they’re willing to overlook his particular predilection. But both he and Abedin should spare us their it’s-a-private-matter piety. With his persistent perviness, Weiner has put his dick squarely on the ballot. Now a city of 8 million will have its say. Must be quite a thrill for a guy with Weiner’s exhibitionist tendencies.

Weiner can try and convince himself that nothing has changed now that his post-resignation dalliances as "Carlos Danger" have surfaced in the news, along with new photos of his penis, but he is going to have a harder time convincing the rest of us.

You can be sure that the press will be digging for more dalliances and photos, particularly because Weiner has denied some of the story about his online escapades that was told on TheDirty.com but won't say which parts are untrue.

Leaving that sort of uncertainty in the story is just asking for trouble, asking for reporters and bloggers like the guy at TheDirty.com to keep digging for dirt.

You can bet that more will surface before all is said and done, that the press is going to feed off Weiner's wounded, skinny-ass carcass, that he will remain the focus of the race and not for good reasons.

It is true that Weiner got a good reception yesterday at the Gay Men's Health Crisis Forum after he gave his second mea culpa press conference, with audience members applauding his energy and gestures throughout.

But let's see what a few days of devastating coverage in the papers does to that kind of reception on the trail, not to mention to his poll numbers.

People are often willing to forgive politicians for their mistakes once - David Vitter and Mark Sanford are good examples of that impulse on the voters' part - but third chances are harder to come by. 

And as Michelle Cottle wrote in that Daily Beast piece I quoted from above, if anybody votes for Anthony Weiner for mayor, they have to be willing to give him fourth, fifth, sixth and perhaps infinite chances, because Weiner is a compulsive sex addict and you can be sure he isn't going to stop his online adventures now.

Not if he can suffer being exposed twice and still walk out of his apartment this morning looking fresh and rested and claiming nothing much has changed since the new penis photos surfaced.