Nerditorial: I call Bravo Sierra on Anyone Who Takes Andrew Breitbart Seriously

Do you consider this guy to be reliable?

Do NOT pull this man's finger. It's a trick.

Why?

No, really. Why?

If this man breaks a story, just assume it is made up.

Made up.

He broke a story about ACORN that was proven to be false.

He broke a story about Shirley Sherrod, that turned out to be provably false.

He is now breaking a story about U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner. A story that was posted on his blog by an anonymous writer, no less.

I'm going to assume it will also turn out to be provably false.

To sum up, the story is that Rep. Weiner sent a photo of his penis to one of his Twitter followers. His erect penis. (Wall Street Journal post HERE.)

Bloggers with a conservative bias are jumping on this story with predictable gusto.

Now if you follow this story, you can learn a few things.

1) You will never get back the time you spent on this story.

2) The story has developed to include evidence that this was the work of a "hacker" (or since this is on Twitter, I suppose that would be a "twacker".)

3) Breitbart is publishing another story that will end up being provably false.

4) The timing of this story is interesting.

What is now being called, I'm not kidding here, Weiner-gate... (which I admit is kinda funny), has taken place just days after the special election in the 26th Congressional District of New York.

That seat was vacated when a felony stupid Representative posted his image on Craigslist with the clear intent of getting some Craigslist "strange". (Yes, he is a Republican... as if you had to ask. Yes, he is married... at least, he was...) This guy ended up having to resign his seat and this special election ended up placing that district in Democratic hands for the first time in many many many years.

So, now, there is this new scandal with a Democratic Representative taking what appears to be a felony stupid photo on some form of social media.

For what it is worth, there are a few problems with the entire story.

An anonymous post.

At 12:24 a.m. early Saturday morning (or late Friday night if you prefer)

Are you serious? An unidentified pseudonym?

Oh, Bravo to the entire Sierra.

At least with the ACORN story and the Shirley Sherrod story, we knew who the hell was making the assertions here.

I use a psuedonym (I'm using it right now) so I'm all in favor of others using them. However, I would not be hiding anonymously behind a pseudonym to accuse a public figure of lewd behavior.

(For the record, my name is Shane Roth, and my pseudonym hides my identity like the screws in Clark Kent's glasses hide Superman's identity.)

The guy in the photo was wearing underwear.

You don't see the penis. At all. Not even a little testicular cleavage. You do see a field of poly-cotton which is obviously concealing an erect penis.

OK. Now, this is a problem with what science fiction fans call Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

When guys send photos of their erect penises over the internet, the long standing tradition is to send a Full Monty style picture. This is not a moment of subtlety or coquettishness. When guys do this, there is no subtext or mystery.

The message is simple:

"Here is a photo of my erect penis. You are welcome."

...not:

"Here is a photo of how my tighty-whities look when covering the mystery that is my erect penis."

Guys don't show off their junk as a form of flirtation. They just don't. They show off their junk to bring flirtation to a close. Often before flirtation even began. Particularly on the internet.

The story would have you believe that this was done with the Representative's official Twitter account.

The same account he uses to communicate with his constituents. (@RepWeiner)

Jesus Tap-dancing Christ. Again with the Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

Where do I begin?

Count the paragraphs in this post. That is how many anonymous Twitter accounts I could have created in the time it took to write this.

The Congressman in NY-26 used Craigslist, because that is the nature of Craigslist. Craigslist is designed to be used in a manner that allows one to be discretely inappropriate. Unfortunately, the NY-26 Congressman didn't leave his goddamn face out of the picture, kind of destroying the whole point of using Craigslist. He might as well have been using Twitter.

Twitter can be used anonymously, but there is nothing discrete about it. And you would have to create a separate account from the one everyone and their Dutch Uncle knows you use if you wanted even the patina of anonymity. The whole point of Twitter is that it is supposed to be obvious from where the message is coming.

I have a hard time believing that any public figure, even a Republican, would use his or her public Twitter account to send anyone such a picture. Not even if the public figure were blind drunk. I could believe that there was some other account involved, but that's as far as I can suspend my disbelief.

(More to the point, if the public figure were blind drunk, or otherwise chemically impaired, then that would make the presence of underwear even more suspicious.)

The screen shot of the original Tweet appears to be altered.

And the alteration appears to have been on the screen name.

Huh.

Link to source HERE.

The story was broken by Andrew Breitbart.

The Wile E Coyote of Gotcha Journalism.

He has been wrong on stories at a level that is just plain unacceptable for citizen or amateur journalists. And his site generates money. He's ostensibly a professional blogger.

Professional journalists get it wrong sometimes. Too often, actually. But this guy is to the political blogs what the Washington Generals are to Exhibition Basketball.

At this point, he's been burned so many times with stories that have turned out to be fatally flawed that you would think he would have adopted some sort of policy of due diligence.

Not so much, it seems.

Andrew Breitbart is profoundly unreliable as a source of news. Pay attention to him at your peril. Dude does not give the square root of a shit if his stories are factual.

Let Breitbart be Breitbart. He has the First Amendment right to be wrong. But if you rely on him as a credible source of news, it is your judgment that I call into question.

The First Amendment doesn't grant any one the right to be believed.