OK, I admit it: when I heard this morning that Rep. Weiner had supposedly sent a coed a picture of his (encased) genitalia via Twitter, I assumed that somebody was just having his or her little joke by hacking into the man’s account and indicating that Weiner is, as I put it, one of the bigger d*cks in Congress. But that was before Ace of Spades demolished this argument utterly (H/T: Neil Stevens) (remember, folks [and bad Moe!]: identity theft is a crime), so now I am taking this seriously as a possible scandal, and I found something interesting going on. Somebody’s scrubbing the recipient’s Internet presence, even as we speak.
The coed’s name (one Gennette Cordova) was (obviously) easily accessible, thanks to the wonders of screenshots (such as the ones done by Doug Ross, via The Other McCain), so it was a fairly trivial exercise to do a search for her name, prior to May 2011. Turns out she’s a writer for her local college: examples here and here and here. Except that Cordova’s name is no longer on those articles: compare this to this, and this to this… and compare this to this, which has an extra layer of scrubbing going on. That last one is most interesting, because it’s the one that Lee Stranahan over at Patterico noted was an article apparently written by Cordova that talked about how sites like Twitter and Facebook would allow people opportunities to meet their ‘celebrities.’
Whether or not those sites also allowed one specific person an opportunity to meet one particular, specifically-directed set of celebrity genitals at one remove is still up in the air: but I am very much wondering why it was suddenly necessary to remove Ms. Cordova’s name from all of her article bylines.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
By the way: Weiner has apparently not actually done anything about his account being hacked, past making jokes about somebody committing identity-theft on a sitting Congressman’s online presence. Odd, huh?
Thanks for catching this… I didn’t bother to take screenshots because 1) I didn’t find her articles interesting 2) I didn’t think they would bother with them… I was wrong on part 2… good job..
I’m trying to keep track of everything from here:
http://justpaste.it/weinerboner
I really do not know what is going on here but I guess curiosity killed the cat. The other McCain (Meghan)? Isn’t Weiner recently married. Now is he letting other women throw pictures of “his” out on the internet?
And just for good measure I filed a formal complaint with the FBI Internet Crime division. If Weiner was “hacked” like he is now claiming it needs to be looked into. http://bit.ly/jEea37
*facepalm* I wanted to believe him too. I mean really, didn’t we learn anything from Christopher Lee?
What to do? Falsely reporting a crime is a crime as well. Just remember Congressman Weiner, it is the cover up that kills you.
‘shopped; ah kin see teh pixels
On that note, we must quickly find this Gennette Cordova and talk to her.
Didn’t a Republican resign after a nearly identical action just a short time ago?
Journalists build credibility by compiling their stories. I wonder if Gennette appreciates getting erased because of her connection to a, ummmmmmm…….Weiner.
I am pleased to see that Representative Weiner is still standing firm and proud for an individual man-date.
Every election season since 1992 I’ve been saying to myself, “Oh, come on — the media can’t get even more nakedly partisan toward the Democrats in slanting the news than this!” … and every time the media have proved me wrong. The non-reporting and mis-reporting of the Weinergate affair by our glorious media is going to become a textbook example of journalistic malpractice, not because it’s a story of earth-shattering importance, but because it isn’t. And yet our media are ready to cast away what little remaining integrity they may still retain, just to protect Congressman Anthony Weiner.
It reminds me of the line in A Man for All Seasons —
“Why, Richard — it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world! But for Wales?!“
The web can definitely be “scrubbed” if one knows how to do it…