Saturday, June 18, 2011

The Denouement of "Weinergate"

The daily, ferocious media assault on ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, complete with juvenile sexual double entendres on the front pages of  New York City tabloids and elsewhere, juiced by the rightwing semi-underground's daily drip-drip-drip of one photo at a time into "the discourse," combined with virtually all the other politicians turning on him, finally forced Weiner to resign after almost 3 weeks of ridicule, humiliation, abasement, and vituperation. Given the prominence of "the story," and the high dudgeon on display, you'd have thought he was a pedophile or something.

Left unanswered was exactly how the likes of Andrew Breitbart and the neofascist cadres sometimes referred to as "the conservative blogosphere" got the photos in the first place, including supposedly one of Weiner's naked genitals which Breitbart had on his cellphone.

We were treated to a porn movie "actress"/"exotic dancer"  named [pseudonymly?] "Ginger Lee" expressing her disapproval of Weiner sexting her (what does she expect from men? Isn't that exactly what she invites from them, sexual ardor?) being treated as a serious, major news story, even in the august New York Times (June 16). Ms. Lee's media foray was made on June 15, the day before Weiner threw in the towel (so to speak- oops, there I go!). Why the opinion of some professional slut should be more than a footnote in the matter- she added no new information, insight, or knowledge to the affair- is left unexplained.

And in a repetition as farce of Andrew Breitbart's hijacking of Weiner's first press conference in which he tearfully 'fessed up to tweeting naughty pics and lying about it, a clown working for the vulgar lout Howard Stern, posing as a constituent, yelled "pervert" and other abuse at Weiner during his resignation announcement. This lowlife lackey, named, supposedly, "Benjy Bronk," explained helpfully to reporters that "I'm trying to get to the truth and, uh, get on camera." Unfortunately the New York Times buried this information in the last 2 paragraphs of a lengthy story that started on page one. Instead, the Times played along with the Stern stunt by referencing it in its headlines without letting you know it was purely  cheesy showbiz fodder for Stern's "show." On page one it read: "In Chaotic [false!] Scene, Weiner Quits Seat In Scandal's Wake- Vulgar Shouts During Announcement in Brooklyn- Relief for Democrats."
Well yes, but the "vulgar shout" were just staged by an entertainment-business clown on orders of his boss, a grotesquely overpaid peddler of crude, coarse titillation. Why legitimize and dignify that? Why elevate it to important news worthy of headline treatment?

The Times did the same thing on the jump page, page 30, with the headline there: "Amid Chaotic [again that falsehood- the photo showed no "chaos", nor does the article describe any] Scene in Brookly, Congressman Resigns in Wake of Online Scandal." Note to Times: one attention-hungry asshole on a mission from a professional exhibitionist-smut-peddler does not constitute "chaos." "Howard Stern Sends Lackey to Harass Weiner At Resignation Announcement." If you really think it's that important to put in a headline, that's what you should have said. But then, NY Times headlines are more often than not misleading, disingenuous, or downright disinformative.

 I will leave it to you, dear reader, to reflect on the irony of Howard Stern, a lewd panderer whose entire "career" consists of talking smut and having sluts strip for him in his studio, sending a flunky to call Weiner a "pervert." And of the oh-so-prim NY Times aiding and abetting one of his sleazy, callous stunts. (This is a paper that leaves you guessing what curse words they're referring to when they reference them in some incident or other. Not even a hint.)

Interestingly, AFTER Weiner was successfully defenestrated by the media (the politicians are captive creatures of the media and dance to their tune, as they have no real popular support and are just hired hands for big money interests, and thus are totally dependent on the corporate media to present them in a positive light and exist in morbid dread of negative media coverage- obsession with avoiding "gaffes" being a symptom of this dread), on June 18, a Saturday, which is the least read day of the week for the paper, the New York Times buried a story on page A15 (suddenly Weiner is no longer page one news) about a cabal of neofascist stalkers who tried to entrap Weiner online. ("Fake Identities Were Used on Twitter in Effort to Get Information on Weiner," a totally misleading headline.) One of these fanatics posed as a 16 year old girl and tried to inveigle Weiner into being her "prom date." With his accomplices, he tried to create a drumbeat of people badgering Weiner into agreeing to this. Another fake identity was created as her "girlfriend."

Later, when tracked down, one of the plotters posed as the "girl's" "mother" and sent a fake California driver's license and fake school records to a reporter from the blog Mediaite. (How much you want to bet that "the authorities" don't even investigate these forgers? James O'Keefe, a serial stalker and libeler of social service organizations, got caught inside the offices of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu with wiretapping equipment, and was let off scotfree by the Obama regime, after all. And rightists have long had carte blanche in this country to commit politically-motivated crimes, including arson and murder, with impunity. The KKK murdered thousands of people in gruesome fashion, and anti-abortion terrorists have committed thousands of assaults, arsons, bombings, vandalizations, and some murders, mostly unprosecuted, for example. So this is small beer for the right.)

The fascist stalking group is on Twitter as #bornfreecrew. The fake Twitter accounts for the "girls" were later deleted.

None of this was revealed until the media ran the fascists' ball across the goal line and ousted Weiner.

To be sure, Weiner's behavior was juvenile and irrational. But basically harmless and trivial. And if his wife is so uptight that this is "devastating" to her, she needs therapy as much as he does.


It was the same thing with ACORN,  with Shirley Sherrod, and USDA employee libeled by Andrew Breitbart and fired within the day by the Obama regime, with the attacks on Planned Parenthood and NPR. (an NPR executive and a consultant immediately fell on their swords because of some mild remarks the consultant made to fascist spies misrepresenting themselves as donors to the effect that NPR would be better off without Government funds- what a scandalous thing to say! Makes no sense, as that is exactly what the reactionaries say too. You'd think they'd applaud.) In fact, fascist purges have operated like this at least since the 1950s purge era. (Aka "McCarthy era," a way of false pretending it was all the doing of one Senator, not an entire reactionary establishment, and that it was an aberration. In fact, U.S. history is FILLED with political persecutions, from the very beginning.)

Sometimes the purge demands come from Murdoch's minions, as when Fox "News" redbaited White House adviser Van Jones and Obama immediately fired him. Apparently Obama wants Fox News to endorse him, or thinks if he appeases reactionaries by firing who they tell him to, he'll get their votes. What a cowardly jackass. Obama's consistent pattern is to always punish his supporters and reward his enemies.

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