A number of commenters wanted to know if those who pushed the claim that Weinergate was a conservative conspiracy would issue apologies. Here’s a wrap on how some of them responded since yesterday:
After spending the week prior to Anthony Weiner’s confession suggesting that conservative journalists fabricated the scandal, Eric Boehlert has returned today to attacking conservative journalists for conservative journalism on other subjects. The only reference he has made to his mistake? “Lots of Twitter cons sending me “changing the subject?” messages. Feel free to discuss Weiner all yr if you’d like. Nobody’s stopping U.”
The Daily Kos posted a news item about Weiner’s press conference, but did not mention their earlier posts implicating Andrew Breitbart and others. They seemed disgusted by the idea of apologizing. “The f***ing media wants Weiner to apologize to Andrew Breitbart…What a******s,” the post read.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs kept arguing that Weinergate was fabricated by Andrew Breitbart as late as last Friday. In the final minutes before Weiner’s press conference he wrote in response to readers demanding that he apologize for implicating Breitbart: “Not a freaking chance. If Weiner admits to sending the pictures in question, I’ll be surprised and disappointed, but I’m never going to apologize.” An accurate prediction. Afterwards he wrote, “Here’s my offer to the wingnut blogs and to Andrew Breitbart: I’ll be happy to apologize to the Fraud King, just as soon as he apologizes to Shirley Sherrod, Planned Parenthood, and ACORN, for smearing them with dishonestly edited videos. Which I don’t expect to ever happen.”
Blogger Joseph Cannon has come up with a new theory in a piece accurately titled “This post will outrage all of you. I don’t care.” Now, Cannon argues, Anthony Weiner himself is in on the deception. “I accept every part of his confession except for the statement about the night of the 27th. I wouldn’t believe that part if Weiner personally called me up and insisted,” Cannon wrote. In his account, Weiner did in fact have consensual conversations with several young women, but the tweet that brought these relationships into the public eye was still the work of a hacker — and Weiner is being blackmailed into saying otherwise by Andrew Breitbart.
Joy Behar, appearing on The View this morning, did not reference the suspicion she previously voiced that this was a conservative send-up: “I love the Weiner — I love the congressman, too,” she commented. Barbara Walters, meanwhile, proposed a novel theory that Weiner took the pictures to show his wife how much he missed her (his wife — not Barbara Walters). She kept things in perspective by remembering that other politicians do embarrassing things, too: “If Sarah Palin can still ride around on her bus and be considered as a possible president, this man can override this,” she said. The View then moved onto other important topics, such as Kardashian sisters.