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Boy, do I miss Anthony Weiner. He would have at least given us some comic relief during this ridiculous payroll tax standoff, don't you think?

Here he is forcing Rep. Jack Kingston to admit the Ryan plan ends Medicare as we know it today. Straight up, Kingston spills it.

Take THAT, Politifact.

p.s. Congratulations to Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin on the recent birth of their son.

The last post on Anthony Weiner on my watch, I swear.

But with his resignation now official and the media casting about for the next scandal du jour (hey, guys...look over here!), it's time for a little perspective on just what Anthony Weiner did not do, courtesy of Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker and Lawrence O'Donnell:

Weiner's sins, being wholly online, basically onanistic, pathetically "immature," and totally without direct fleshly carnality, are literally ridiculous. They lack the swaggering macho that pushes more traditional, arguably crueler male transgressions - having affairs, whoring, fathering children out of wedlock - into the comparatively (though only comparatively) safer territory of "boys will be boys" and "men are like that."

One more factor that comes to mind: the particular media addictions of the political class. I suspect that, unlike normal people, a preponderance of that class - commentators, political reporters and editors, operatives, "strategists," aides, news producers, etc. - spends several hours of every day watching cable-news television (or having it drone and flicker in the background), reading political blogs, sending and receiving e-mails about the latest political uproar, and talking about same to other members of the same class, on the phone or face to face. Actual office-holding politicians don't necessarily have the time for all that, but they live inside the bubble it creates. The ambient atmosphere is one of constant overexcitement, hysteria, and sometimes unbearable tension, all focussed on the story of the day. That may be a reason why the protagonists of political scandals are dispatched more quickly and more mercilessly than in the past.

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Not a surprise now, but still the media circus reflected worse on them than him:

A bizarre scandal, one that could only have happened in the social-media era, has apparently come to an end, as Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) announced on Thursday that he will resign from the House of Representatives.

"I'm here today to again apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused. I made this apology to my neighbors and constituents, but I make it in particular to my wife, Huma," Weiner said at senior center in Brooklyn, where he launched his political career with a run for City Council.

I had hoped to be able to continue the work that my constituents elected me to do," Weiner said. "Unfortunately the distraction that I have created has made that impossible, so today I am announcing my resignation from Congress.

At least one person cheered when Weiner announced his resignation. The press conference carried a strange and distracted ambiance, as Weiner talked over repeated outbursts from a heckler, who yelled out such questions as, "Were you fully erect?" and "Are you at least seven inches?" before members of the press corps shouted him down. One reporter yelled out, "He's not with us, get him out of here."

Andrew Breitbart, who helmed this targeted takedown of Weiner, was inconveniently in Minnesota (near where Netroots Nation was being held, go figure) during Weiner's presser, so rather than usurp the podium as in the past, made sure to call into Fox News Channel to give his view. Can't forget that it's all about him, can we?

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I'm not going to write much more on this topic. Yes, I was lied to also by Weiner when he made his denials, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and we know how that turned out. There are many questions being asked and that's expected, but saying that, I was glad to see that CNN's Reliable Sources did not vindicate Breitbart's overall track record of bad behavior, simply because it was proven that Anthony Weiner did do many embarrassing and creepy things.

The panel members as well as Howard Kurtz made some good points about the media's role in all of this. Jane Hall explained that conservatives who say they hate the MSM, don't need them to peddle their stories because the media transmits them anyway:

Hall: Yes. You know, someone asked me if I thought this showed dissatisfaction with the mainstream media, that the person went to Breitbart. I said it showed absolutely how the mainstream media worked, which is you give it to Breitbart, Breitbart puts it out, it's all over the place, and the media follow.

If the media were acting responsibly, they would have investigated the allegations instead of waiting for Weiner to hold a presser so they can simply yell questions at him. I'm not writing this because it's a Democratic politician caught up in this one, I've talked about this issue many times before. I know that's part of every scandal, but really, can we have some investigating too? Every network has reporters, staffs and resources to actually practice journalism, but they choose not to much of the time until the feeding frenzy dies down. If the media were as focused on Anthony Weiner as they were on the allegations that led us into the Iraq war by the Bush administration that resulted in thousands and thousands of deaths, the public and the politicians would not have given Bush a free hand in starting that unjust war.

The Scooter Libby trial also highlighted the corrupt nature between Beltway press figures, the people they cover, and the access they are given via D.C. cocktail parties.

This delicious morsel about the "Meet the Press" host and the vice president was part of the extensive dish Cathie Martin served up yesterday when the former Cheney communications director took the stand in the perjury trial of former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Flashed on the courtroom computer screens were her notes from 2004 about how Cheney could respond to allegations that the Bush administration had played fast and loose with evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Option 1: "MTP-VP," she wrote, then listed the pros and cons of a vice presidential appearance on the Sunday show. Under "pro," she wrote: "control message."

"I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used," Martin testified. "It's our best format."

How embarrassing. I posted this Gloria Borger exchange when she caught Cheney in a lie using Meet The Press for his warmongering in a post: (The incredible C&L video archives comes through again. Via a post from 02/08/07 The Guide: How Dick Cheney uses "Meet the Press" to control the message )

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"Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person," the statement reads. "In light of that, he will request a short leave of absence from the House of Representatives so that he can get evaluated and map out a course of treatment to make himself well. Congressman Weiner takes the views of his colleagues very seriously and has determined that he needs this time to get healthy and make the best decision possible for himself, his family and his constituents."

Weiner's abrupt departure comes on the heels of the news that Weiner had had private messages with a 17 year old high school student, although both Weiner and the minor's parents insist that no inappropriate messages were exchanged. Weiner did not absolutely rule out the notion of treatment at his press conference Monday, but made a point of saying that this was not a subject for which he felt could be eliminated by treatment but rather was an error in judgment.

Unfortunately, Weiner leaves as pressure for him to resign ratchets up. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and DCCC Chair Steve Israel have all called for Weiner to resign, despite the fact that polls show his constituents do not want him to and there's a great likelihood his seat will be districted out next year.

The House Democratic leadership went public today with their unequivocal desire for Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) to resign his office as a result of a scandal involving sexual conversations and explicit photos sent over the Internet. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), DNC Chair and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and DCCC Chair and fellow New York Congressman Steve Israel simultaneously released statements calling on Weiner to resign.Pelosi's statement:

"Congressman Weiner has the love of his family, the confidence of his constituents, and the recognition that he needs help. I urge Congressman Weiner to seek that help without the pressures of being a Member of Congress."

Wasserman Schultz:

"It is with great disappointment that I call on Representative Anthony Weiner to resign. The behavior he has exhibited is indefensible and Representative Weiner's continued service in Congress is untenable. This sordid affair has become an unacceptable distraction for Representative Weiner, his family, his constituents and the House - and for the good of all, he should step aside and address those things that should be most important - his and his family's well-being."

And Israel:

"Anthony's inappropriate behavior has become an insurmountable distraction to the House and our work for the American people. With a heavy heart, I call on Anthony to resign.

"I pray for his family and hope that Anthony will take time to get the help he needs without the distractions and added pressures of Washington, DC."

Notably, James Clyburn broke from the Democratic leadership (such as it can be called in this instance) and supported Weiner.

Personally, I think this whole event is indicative of the weak leadership we have in Congress. Without defending Weiner (and with the caveat that if anything inappropriate was exchanged with the minor, all bets are off), the Democrats caving to Republican politicking and haymaking shows why it's such a struggle to move that Overton Window to the left. As long as Weiner's communications with the minor remain appropriate--and all indications so far is that they will--then Weiner's committed no infraction to require this abandonment from his own party. Did the Republicans do that for Vitter? Ensign? Coburn? Hell, have they done it for Boehner and his lobbyist girlfriend who is not his wife? No, no, no, and hell no.

But the Democrats are only too willing to give up on someone who was openly targeted by conservative smear merchants, who has broken no laws and who still enjoys the support of the majority of his constituents. Party of the people? Not so much. Hey, how 'bout we pay as much attention to the clear ethics violations of Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife as we do to Anthony Weiner?

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Howie Kurtz did a segment on the media's coverage of Anthony Weiner's Twitter story on CNN's Reliable Sources. Jeff Jarvis was the voice of reason in a lot of ways. I like Gawker and expect them to have a good time with this story--because there's nothing Gawker likes better than a political sex scandal--and they have Maureen O'Connor defending the merits of their coverage. Kurtz set up her opening by saying that Gawker can get away with using salty language on their site and she responded by saying the word "dick" on TV and although it made it on the telecast, it was deleted out on CNN's transcript page. Transcripts must never be seen by children. They may go blind.

MAUREEN O'CONNOR, WRITER, GAWKER: Well, I personally only cover Capitol Hill for the underwear scandals. This is what we do. And, you know, is this relevant to Anthony Weiner's career as a politician? Maybe. But it's an interesting story. And from our perspective, this is what we do. We cover human interest stories. We cover the strange case of a person, a powerful person, ending up falling to the exact same ridiculously follies that everyone does, taking a picture of his (EXPLETIVE DELETED) and getting caught doing it.

'Doing it' is still not a given yet and the Congressman hasn't admitted to that, but Howie was stunned for a second and then turned to Jarvis and asked him how journalists handled the story.

KURTZ: OK. As I was saying, Gawker does have a different way of talking about these things. Not a word that I would use on the air. Jeff Jarvis, I know you're not embarrassed to talk about these things. We've talked about your prostate operation on this program. How did journalists do on this story, particularly on figuring out what happens with a Twitter account, whether it can be hacked and whether a photo can be sent without your knowledge?

JEFF JARVIS, FOUNDER, "BUZZ MACHINE": Well, Howie, I disagree with you when you say the media had no choice. Yes, there's a choice. It's a fine story for Gawker, absolutely. It's a fine story for Jon Stewart, who point out the bloggers actually did some reporting on this.

But all in all, what's the real story here? You know, that a congressman has a penis? Let's stipulate that, there's no news in that. That he wears underwear? Who cares. That he might have accidentally sent out the wrong photo on Twitter? OK, big deal.

We have to find some medium ground here behind the American Puritanism of, oh, my God, congresspeople are sexual, and the European view that, of course they're sexual. There's some middle ground. This is not a story, Howie. The amount of effort that was put into this was just pathetic.

KURTZ: Jeff, I take your point that perhaps we have overplayed it. But the reason I said we have no choice is because Congressman Weiner kept giving interviews in which he clearly could not answer basic questions, including the clips I just played about, well, I have no idea whether that guy and that picture of some guy in underwear is me.

JARVIS: OK, but carry it so the extreme. So what is the story?

JARVIS: If he had sexually harassed someone, then maybe there's a legitimate story. But if, at the most, he sent out a photo from his hard drive with his photo on it, what's the big deal? What's the news there? What's the impact on democracy and how we live our lives? Zippo.

Jarvis tried to make some sense of the MSM feeding frenzy. But there's little sense to be found.

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I like to post Rep. Tim Ryan's floor speeches occasionally even if we differ on certain important issues, but he nails House Republicans over their lust to destroy Medicare.

Ryan: This dismantles the Medicare program. Period. Dot. And at least have the courage to come out and say ‘we want to dismantle the Medicare program.’ And if you want to look at how far to the right that the Republican party has gotten on this issue, I’ve never seen former Speaker Gingrich do a faster or more complete Potomac two-step in my entire life then when he even insinuated that this may not be good for seniors. Because the goal now of the Republican party, Madam Chair, is to dismantle the Medicare program…the Democratic plan is for Medicare. We keep it to cover senior citizens and their health care when they get older.

And here's a little Anthony Weiner thrown in for good measure.

Weiner: I move to strike the last word Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, you may recall I was standing here approximately two hours ago waiting to speak with several other members on the efforts of my Republican friends to eliminate Medicare as we know it and for reasons that are known only to the Chair, I was denied the ability to do that. Well, I’m back. And just to review the bidding, here’s where it was before that order was made. We had the Chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, a good man, a guy I like, stand down in the well and say, ‘Oh, no’ (and this by the way is someone who is elected by the Republican members to represent them in races all around the country) saying that the Ryan plan wasn’t a plan it was and I’m quoting here, “a construct to develop a plan” and he said the proposal is not a voucher program and then he said it was a one size fits all, that Medicare was draining our economy is what he said.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that might be the rationale for our Republican friends wanting to eliminate Medicare, but none of those things are true. It is not a ‘construct to develop a plan’ it is the proposal of the Republican party of the United States of America to eliminate Medicare as a guaranteed entitlement. If you don’t believe me, go get the book that they wrote, go get the budget that they wrote, go get the bill that they wrote.

And please don't forget about Blue America's actblue page dedicated to Stop Paul Ryan

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On The Last Word, Anthony Weiner maneuvered Rep Jack Kingston (R-GA) into admitting that the Ryan plan ends Medicare and converts it to a voucher plan.

What's so funny about this is how hard Boehner has been working to deny it, because of course, vouchers equal privatization. So Boehner's out there laying it down saying no, it's not privatization, it's transformation. We all know it's bull but then who cares, because he's doubling down on Ryan's plan after the President's speech anyway in order to appease the Tea Party and his insurance company keepers happy.

Keep overreaching, GOP. Keep it up.

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There's something about Anthony Weiner that seems to really get under Sean Hannity's skin. Maybe it's the way he makes both Hannity and his guests look like utter buffoons. That might have something to do with it.

Such as when Michele Bachmann went on with Hannity and Weiner the other night, producing hilarious exchanges such as this one:

HANNITY: Here's my point, $3.7 billion, we have nearly $5 trillion now accumulated Obama debt, $5 trillion. You tell me how much you are willing to cut out of the budget?

WEINER: Well, let me ask you something. Is it accumulated Obama debt when President Bush left office, there was 700,000 job losses that month. There are more private sector jobs created under President Obama in his two years --

HANNITY: That's a lie.

WEINER: It is a fact.

HANNITY: Congressman, I know you are a Democrat and I know you're a bitter partisan. But in the month of February --

WEINER: No, I'm just a partisan.

HANNITY: Stop it. In the month of February our deficit --

WEINER: Don't call me names, Sean. It is almost St. Patrick's Day you are going to call me names?

HANNITY: Yes. Our deficit was $223,000 for the month. In 2007, if we are looking at real dollars and real money, we paid less in a year than we did for the month of February!

WEINER: Well, look, I will tell you this. The deficit right now comes from three places. One, unfunded wars, two, enormous numbers of jobs lost a tragedy that President Bush drove us into this cliff and three tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

HANNITY: Congresswoman Bachmann, you know, George Bush has been out of office for nearly 2-1/2 years he can't get over it. Barack Obama's budgets nearly $5 trillion in debt. He won't mention where he would cut. I'll ask you the same question --

WEINER: What do you mean he?

HANNITY: That would be you! Congresswoman, where would you cut?

BACHMANN: You know, Sean. I had no idea that Representative Weiner was such a reader of fiction. He's a huge fiction reader because that's all of his numbers. I wanted to mention --

WEINER: Bachmann, I don't think you want to go there. I don't think you want to go there, Bachmann.

Weiner later repeated that Bachmann's little bit of projection was "ironic". No kidding. After all, this is the congresswoman who's been running around (mostly on Fox) for the better part of a couple of weeks now claiming that there is $105 billion in health-care reform implementation "secretly" tucked into the budget -- even though it's one of the most publicly debunked bogus republican claim in awhile. The Washington Post's fact checker dismissed it as "bordering on the ridiculous", while PolitiFact dismantled it as well.

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This was quite the wild exchange on Fox News yesterday morning.

Anthony Weiner makes the argument that Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from all court decisions that are related to the new health-care law since his wife made over $700K from groups that oppose it, and Thomas himself has stated that he agrees with those groups, basically indicating that he's already ruled before the evidence has been presented. Weiner's argument is that when money is involved it taints that Justice. That's a very good point -- one that Fox talkers would be shouting from the rooftops if the subject were a "liberal" justice.

Megyn Kelly, however, argues that since Ginny's a lobbyist, that's not grounds for Clarence to have to withdraw from cases. Weiner doesn't let her off the hook, so she resorts to the BillO Interruption technique to cut him off when he told her that Justice Kagan has recused herself on almost half of her cases on the Supreme Court to teach her how that could work. Kelly wasn't happy.

KELLY: just, just, let, let...

WEINER: First, let me respond to your points.

KELLY: No, I'm responding to you, sir. You mentioned Justice Kagan and I'm pointing out that she was the Solicitor general.

WEINER: No, you made a mistake. You made a mistake

KELLY: Let me tell you sir, let me tell you...You know you're throwing everything at me so I can't offer any ...

WEINER: No, I get an opportunity so let me respond to your question.

KELLY: What don't you just do a soliloquy? OK, you just take it away.

WEINER: OK, this is the way interviews work. You ask the question and I get to answer.

KELLY: Oh, thank you.

WEINER: When you put your commentaries at the end they better be factually correct and in this case they aren't --

KELLY: Was she or was she not the Solicitor General of the US?

WEINER: That's not the part I'm taking exception to.

KELLY: I covered that.

WEINER: No, you said she had to -- yeah, I'm not sure what really goes on at Fox that's actually coverage, but we'll get to -- that's another conversation.

KELLY: OK, OK.

It continued on from there. I almost felt bad for her in a way because Megyn had to turn to the "Clarence and Ginny believe in liberty defense. Nah, not at all. Way to go Anthony!

[H/t emailer Ron]