Strange days for Mr. Weiner

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 1 Comment

anthony-weiner-press-conference

It is possible that the New York Times’ exhaustive coverage of Anthony Weiner’s renewed sex scandal is due to his candidacy for mayor. It’s also possible that they like constructing headlines around the phrase “Mr. Weiner.”  For those who do not know, a 22 year-old woman has told quasi-news site The Dirty that she and Mr. Weiner exchanged sexually explicit communications in the summer of 2012, not long after he resigned from Congress for doing same. According to the Times, their exchange began when the woman “reached out to express her disappointment in him.” Say what you will about Anthony Weiner; he is really good at convincing women to exchange sexually explicit messages. Also he used the pseudonym “Carlos Danger.” Also he is destroying his life.

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Friday links: Boom! It Sucks edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 2 Comments

Thanks, Failblog!

It’s a disorientingly beautiful day in Missoula, where the sun and light breeze and 71-degree forecast almost distract me from the roaring of the creek, which has gone from eight inches deep to about eight feet. In this way it resembles the Clark Fork river, another usually placid body of water that has decided to erupt in rage and have its way with everybody’s basement. It’s like my father used to say: this whole thing could fall apart at any time. It’s summer now, everything is awesome, but all it takes is one driving mistake or subprime lending crisis or month of heavy rainfall and boom—everything sucks. This week’s link roundup is all about stuff going catastrophically wrong very quickly. You’d think that’d be depressing, but don’t worry: it’s stuff going wrong for other people. Fun, right? I’m sure we personally will be fine.

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God. Dammit.

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 12 Comments

Representative Anthony Weiner, in jacket, shirt, tie and socks, waits for Ronnie to set up the shot.

Hey—what do Brett Favre, Kanye West and Anthony Weiner have in common? They’ve all distracted us from critical problems in American politics and culture. Also, they’ve all conducted peer-reviewed experiments proving that becoming rich and/or famous does not make your penis larger. It also doesn’t make you smarter. Yesterday, Representative Anthony Weiner (D–NY) announced that yes, it was a picture of his boxer-briefed semi sent to that woman on Twitter, and yes, he sent it. That previous story about how a hacker got into his Twitter and sent a mysterious picture of someone’s dick to one pretty girl from his followers list? Yeah, saying that was a bad idea. Come to think of it, that was probably the second worst idea Anthony Weiner had all month.

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Anthony Weiner runs Congressional Correspondents Dinner

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 2 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj_yProUnEI&feature=player_embedded#at=678

That, dear friends, is US Representative Anthony Weiner (D–NY, net worth $108k) laying it in there like an old pro—okay, like a gifted amateur—at the Congressional Correspondents Dinner. The CCD is to the White House Correspondents Dinner as Congress is to the White House, which is to say as Larry Wilmore is to Stephen Colbert.* And yet Weiner rose to the occasion, delivering a series of remarks re: his own name even better than that one—at one point he pleaded with John Boehner, “Come on, brother, I’m not Anthony Way-ner”—mocking CNN’s declining ratings, and gradually isolating Rand Paul until Weiner was examining his every response like Don Rickles. He also showed a picture of himself looking eerily like Horschach from Welcome Back, Kotter. In short, he was funny—which when you think about it is kind of surprising, considering that Weiner is a rising star in possibly the least funny political organization in American history.

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