Weiner: Let’s move on, shall we?

Rep. Anthony Weiner gets a skeptical reception from reporters after he suggests that he will move on from the so-called “Weinergate” story that erupted over the weekend. In this clip from CNN, Weiner says the story will go away on its own, to which one reporter responds that the story would go away more quickly if Weiner would answer some of the questions — such as whether he’s pressing for an investigation, whether this was a “hack” or a “prank,” and so forth. Weiner tells the reporters that he’s not convinced answering questions will do much good, a response that they clearly don’t accept:

Allahpundit has been linking the most prominent “Weinergate” stories in the headlines, but neither of us have had anything to say about the story until now. For my part — I won’t speak for AP — the explanation could have gone either way, and I had no opinion on which I thought it might be. Considering that the picture didn’t contain any identifying attributes, nothing about it suggested that it depicted Rep. Weiner at all, except for it being on his Twitter thread. I wanted to wait for a response from Weiner, and given the fact that this happened over a holiday weekend, I kept an open mind about the possibilities.

Weiner’s response seems odd under the circumstances. It might be that Weiner is still telling the truth and just believes this will blow over with the “hacking” explanation and a stonewall strategy from him, but if so, it’s not a safe bet that it will work. The mainstream press seems to be getting pretty curious about Weiner’s Twitter habits, and that may or may not go away with a lack of response from Weiner. One would expect some pretty emphatic denials from a wronged politician, including a demand to track down the culprits of a political dirty trick. A “let’s move along, nothing to see here” attitude at least suggests that Weiner isn’t terribly anxious for an investigation, which raises questions of its own.

I’ve been following the story at Ace’s place this weekend, and I’d recommend readers continue to follow the course of the story there (as well as Big Journalism, which reported it first, and our friends at Verum Serum). I’m still not convinced much of any particular explanation, but Weiner’s response raises a lot more questions than it doesn’t answer.

Blowback