“Uh… you know, I mean… There’s nothing nude about it. I am in no more clothes than I’ll be at the Y this afternoon when I swim my mile.”

Fox 2′s Charlie LeDuff shows the photo to Judge McCree. The Judge seems quite proud of it. “Hot dog, yep that’s me,” says McCree. Play the video to get the full report and to hear what the judge himself has to say about the photo.

LeDuff also talks to legal analyst Charlie Langton who says it’s possible McCree could lose his job over the photo.

McCree’s father, Wade H. McCree Jr., was the first African-American judge to be appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and only the second African-American solicitor general, serving during the Carter administration.

Some history:

McCree—also married—comes from a famous legal family. His father, Wade McCree Jr. served as the first African-American judge on the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and in 1977 became the US solicitor general under President Jimmy Carter. At McCree Jr.’s death, a colleague on the Sixth Circuit remembered the judge (PDF) as a towering intellect with a “remarkable memory” whose “ability to recite poetry and song lyrics, both familiar and obscure, was legendary.” McCree Jr. even relieved tension among his colleagues with “bits of doggerel” or a “hastily written limerick.”

Sexy texting also played a key role in the scandal that brought down Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick back in 2008. In both cases, the use of digital devices meant that the texts and images left the texter’s control. While simple communications tech makes affairs, indiscretions, and harassment easier than ever, it also makes them harder to hide in the end.

The New York Times called Dan Hill, the president of Sensory Logic, a market-research firm in Minneapolis that uses facial expressions to quantify emotional response to explain the face that every politician makes when confessing they lied about something naughty. He explained:

Lips pursed and pulled tight is a sign of anger. Anger as an emotion typically means you feel like you’re not in control of circumstances. It arises from lack of progress, confusion, feelings that one’s being dealt with unfairly, i.e. resentment. These are powerful men used to being in charge. So it likely signifies feeling vulnerable (not in control).

The chin raiser, where the chin boss pushes upward, causing the lower lip to push upward, could also be called an upside-down smile. It’s a muscle movement implicated in expressions of anger, disgust and sadness.

Disgust is an emotion that relates back, in evolutionary terms, to “bad taste” or “bad smell.” The bad-taste version is as if to protect the mouth from taking in something that is poisonous. Clearly, these scandals are (sometimes fatally) poisonous to the politicians’ careers. It’s as if the whiff of scandal tastes bad to them.

Eyes and head down both correspond to sadness, i.e., disappointment in oneself. Regret. Like disgust, it’s a sign of withdrawal, as if to remove oneself from what has caused shame or embarrassment.

The basic package you’ve got here is anger, disgust and sadness.

I thought his speech and confession and answers to the reporters questions afterward went as perfect as a situation like this could have gone. “I was trying to protect my wife. I was trying to protect myself” and he apologizes. Perfect response to me. and no excuses, even. He says he wasn’t on drugs, wasn’t drinking – it’s all him and his fault. bra-vo, dude. This press conference only makes me like him more.

The only creepy thing that brakes my heart is re-watching footage from, what I thought were kickass “throwin it right back in your face” exercises in Awesome and now are revealed to be really scuzzy politician Clintonian weaseling.

They’re reminiscent of Clinton to their performance core: attacking the people reporting on the story, ridiculing the media for covering the story at all, then getting angry at reporters with more brash ridicule paired with firm “I. Did. Not” super accusatory defenses. I know we’re all taught that all politicians are like that but I don’t like that “they’re all evil” kind of cynicism. This certainly is a win for the cynics though.

An important thing to note though is that the “it was just about sex” line used so often to defend Clinton’s in-your-face denial/lying about one of his affairs was an inaccurate soundbyte that was spread because it sounds persuasive. The reason there was a drawn out battle over something that started as sex was because Clinton was accused of something and lied under oath in denying it.

The truth is that if both Weiner and Clinton had given quick “i’ve sinned and i’m sorry. gonna deal with it on my own time and get back to working for my constituents, thanks” response right away, both their poll and press would be high. However, Clinton comitted perjury as President of the United states and Weiner actually really did just “lie about sex”. There will be an ethics probe (see pic below and lul)

Heres some other stuff:

The most painful one though is this re-posting of a 1996 Cosmo article touting Weiner as a possible future president, which I think would have been difficult given his name and nothing else. He would have been an excellent VP if not for this…

he’s my fave cuz I think he’s honest, he’s bold, actually explains what he believes and never shys away from opposition – always willing to take it to Fox or a right wing show that invites him on and battles it out like a champ. Stick it out and stay in office!

PS: yes, I admit that I am not going into detail and/or posting the pictures here because I like the dude. I’m biased, but I’m forthright about it…

Via ShortFormBlog:

Look, we don’t want the Weiner story to be true. But we’ve done enough tweeting in our day to know all the tricks for reading someone’s social media tracks. We spent a couple of hours digging through tweets to find out more info. And, to us, there seems to be some evidence pointing in both directions on this story. The key thing for us is the existence of the rogue tweet, which was captured by TweetCongress.org even after it was deleted. But there’s also stuff that makes us wonder. The patient zero — the first person to retweet Anthony Weiner’s NSFW tweet — was this guy, who we’ve found in our research to be overly fixated on the congressman even BEFORE the tweet in question. In fact, he posted about a cheating scandal just like this one over TWO WEEKS AGO. Really? How was he so quick to hit the trigger on this? Some other things we noticed from the scandal:

• for On Twitter, Weiner noted the Seattle time of his Friday TV appearance. The recipient of the NSFW tweet, from Seattle, retweeted.
• for The person at the center of the drama deleted her Twitter account — which was active as of yesterday — after the tweet.
• for The girl in question said Weiner was her “boyfriend” in an April tweet. Yeah, so? Her and every other liberal teen female has!
• against To disprove that the photo was of Weiner, Daily Kos has a testof the NSFW photo that suggested it was ‘shopped. Hm.

» The important things to take from this: We don’t think Weiner did anything wrong as of yet, but we do think that there is a lot to suggest one of two things: One, this was possibly a scandal planted by someone who had closely followed the congressman’s Twitter account (because, based on our research, people have), and there were somewhat bizarre things that may have connected Weiner to the girl. Given the track record of Big Journalism,where the story originated from, we’d like to see a better source tackle this thing, because we don’t trust Breitbart as far as we can throw him. We rate this an “inconclusive.”

-I don’t know what they’re talking about with Big Journalism’s track record and the author doesn’t elaborate. As far as I know, the site has a solid track record on facts (nothing has a solid record on opinion/commentary), but they may be referring to the Sherrod Brown thing, which was misreported by right wing outlets including Glenn Beck to claim Breitbart clipped a video out of context but the context was in fact present in the original post. Anyway: that part aside, I too am skeptical of this story, not because of inherit distrust of Breitbart but just cuz. Mostly cuz I want it to not be true. lulz. but whatever. Even if it is, I say if he doesn’t weasel out of it and just comes clean, he will get more support than before, including from some of his more fair minded critics. Maybe even Breitbart (who is being accused of making this whole thing up now). Actually, probably even Breitbart I’d bet. I’d put money on it that Breitbart would drop it and instead just note that no liberal would give a conservative the same free pass and move on.

UPDATE: I don’t know what any of this means but if it’s correct info then it is evidence in the direction of Weiners innocence.

UPDATE: oh wow… Breitbart issues challenge directly to Weiner and basically says exactly what I described his possible reaction being (though he might not be serious about it):

“This is a painful and heartbreaking time,” Shriver said in a statement. “As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment.”

Schwarzenegger and Shriver recently announcedtheir separation after 25 years of marriage, but failed to give a reason for the split. The Los Angeles Times reports that Shriver moved out of the family’s Brentwood home earlier this year when Schwarzenegger confessed his paternity.

Arnold had a kid with a member of the staff and kept it a secret through 2 successful elections as Governor…wtf?

“For at least 10 years, throughout a spectacular and closely-scrutinized political career, Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to hide the existence of a love child with a member of his own household staff. Only now, after leaving the governor’s office and splitting from his equally famous wife of 25 years, are we finding out… “It’s almost mindboggling that information like this did not become public over his political career,” said veteran California GOP strategist Dan Schnur, who now teaches at the University of Southern California. “If this had come out when he was running for governor, he wouldn’t have gotten elected.” - Washington Post

How pissed off is Meg Whitman right now? The former eBay CEO spent a record $150 Million of her own money to gain the privilege of saving California from bankruptcy and she was derailed by a phony scandal that caused weeks of election-costing bad press when Gloria Alred trotted out Whitmans former maid to cry in front of cameras for money and whine about how she is illegally residing in the country, lied to the Whitmans and got fired when they found out about her illegal status. That was a big deal for some reason, while the previous Governor hiding a love child never got uncovered?? Dude…wtf

Now, finally: Paul Reubens Defends His Public Masturbation Arrest to Playboy.

(PeeWee with Tim Burton)

Reubans says on his defense:
“Had we gone to trial, we had ready an expert from the Masters and Johnson Institute who was going to testify that in 30 years of research on masturbation the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her non-dominant hand,”… “I’m right-handed, and the police report said I was jerking off with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn’t have been me.”

On the late night comedians making fun of his arrest:
I get that it’s their job, but I had already said the allegations weren’t true and felt I deserved the benefit of the doubt from them. Make a joke about me but also just say, ‘By the way, he’s been a friend of our show for many years.’ I was shocked people would kick me when I was down.”

And then he tells this amusing story of embarrassment:
Two years ago I was on a flight back to L.A. from the East Coast and it was one of those newer planes where every seat is equipped with its own little live satellite television screen. … I look over to the bulkhead one row in front of me, and I see a TV monitor there showing my mug shot, which then morphs into a picture of Pee-wee,” Reubens added. “And I realize, ‘Oh my God, they’re showing my E! True Hollywood Story—live!—to every seat in this airplane.’ I felt as though I was going to have to jump off the plane.”

SECOND: Here’s the deal on the “sex tape” that isnt a sex tape (you can’t make a solo sex tape. by definition, sex involves another person): if they were all for one guy, then it no diff than there only being one. if they were for more than one guy – even if its 2 and not 7 separate dudes – then its all out the window.

The best interview comes on Fox News’ RedEye, where host Greg Gutfeld jokingly, but not jokingly at all, lectures Carrie about sex tapes right off the bat.

The David Letterman “I know you had sex with employee’s” blackmail attempt illustrates this as one of the girls, a former intern named
Holly Hester comes forward about her affair with the Late Nite host.

“I was madly in love with him at the time,” said Hester. “I would have married him. He was hilarious.” It all started in 1990 when Letterman asked her out on a date to see a movie and the secret romance (/affair? he’s been with the mother of his child since 1989. no word on if they had gone on a “break” the year of 1990), until the funnyman called it off because of their age difference (chicks half your age are only good for one thing, and that thing isn’t “long term relationship that ends in marriage”).

So she was “madly in love” with him… because “he was hilarious”… Can you imagine for a second a man saying that about a woman? of course not, Captain Rhetorical. Not in a comparable circumstance (obviously). If the woman is Sarah Silverman, then that’s not quite the same as a 62 year old David Letterman, now is it.

Here are 2 examples I recently noticed involving James O’Keefe, a 25 year old activist who specializes in illustrating absurdity by being absurd, such as holding an “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” in college (an event popular among Campus Republicans nation-wide where the racial discrimination of affirmative action, which lowers standards for racial minorities, is illustrated in a bake sale by charging whites more for a cookie than a minority). His latest work released a series of 5 hidden camera videos showing corrupt employees of community activist group ACORN, a Democrat front-line group closely associated with Barack Obama, helping him cheat the tax system, hide and operate a whore house, traffic illegal aliens, and use 13 year old El Salvadorian girls as sex slaves. In fact these revelations recently led congress to cut funding to ACORN.

Right wing media has been calling O’Keefes expose a “sting” and “journalism the mainstream media used to do” while left wing media has dismissed it as “Borat style gotcha-videos”.

Steve Krakauer, a writer for Mediate.com, is clearly not a fan of O’Keefe as displayed in a recent piece investigating and mocking O’Keefe. The title, Right Wing Darling James O’Keefe: The Man Who Exposed ACORN and Lucky Charms, gives the tone of the article away, but the snarkiness is also misleading. Krakauer reports about O’Keefe on the Lucky Charms thing:

He waged a campaign against dining halls serving Lucky Charms. You see, besides being magically delicious, O’Keefe thought the cereal was offensive to Irish Americans.

That sounds… odd. And it should. because it isnt true. The Mediate columnist failed to mention that O’Keefe didn’t find the cereal offensive, but rather was satirizing the idea that anyone would find it offensive. I was fooled by Mediaites mis-reporting on this myself until I read the real background from the New York times:

In 2004, at a buddy’s suggestion, he and a few fellow Rutgers students set out to satirize what they saw as a pious sensitivity to ethnicity on campus. The result is still there to see on YouTube: Mr. O’Keefe protesting to a slightly befuddled university dining official that the leprechaun on the cereal box “appears to be an Irish-American.”

“As you can see, we’re not short and green — we have our differences of height — and we think this is stereotypical of all Irish-Americans,” Mr. O’Keefe deadpans, as the official earnestly scribbles notes.

I appreciated the Times clearing that up for me as a reader, however in that very same column the author Scott Shane says this of O’Keefe’s previous under cover endeavors:

He has lampooned liberals by inviting them to become pen pals of imprisoned terrorists, and, more darkly, recorded Planned Parenthood staff members agreeing that he can designate his donation exclusively to the abortion of black babies.

eh.. “Lampooned”?… Really? I thought “lampoon” meant comedic satire, ie: the National Lampoon Chevy Chase movies were humorous satirizations of American life, aka: actors acting out a comedy.

Before I embarrass myself by having to make a correction, I went and looked it up and “lampoon” in fact means “a harsh satire”. So… what exactly is the satire taking place here? How are you “lampooning” anything when you ask an abortion advocacy group if you can donate money to kill black babies and they say yes, or ask a government aided organization if you can get help trafficking 12-15 year old south and central american girls to be used as sex slave prostitutes and getting help?

Satire should be reported as satire. Jokes as jokes. Serious acts as serious acts.

First tell the truth. then give your opinion.

Since the news media has been respectful of the murder and not dwelled on it since it happened or since news of Kennedys death was released this morning, people have been taking to teh Googlez to find out more and indeed the second and 4th most searched term on the search engine is the Chappaquiddick “incident” and the 5th highest is the girl who died there.

At first I was going to just show the top 5, but then I saw 2 more in the 26-33 column to the right, so I included that also just for context.

It was a long time ago… though there isn’t really a statute of limitations on murder (or to be fair: “involuntary endangerment of life that only turned into manslaughter when the suspect leaves the victim to die a horrible death and doesn’t tell the police until the next day”).

In 1969, on the little island of Chappaquiddick on Martha’s Vineyard, Ted Kennedy was leaving a party, driving drunk with a 28-year-old girl he was banging and probably impregnated (oops) named Mary Jo Kopechn. He drove right off a frigging bridge and into the water but was able to escape the overturned vehicle and swim to safety… and then said oh well and went home probably to do a line of coke and masturbate. Wait, what happened to Mary Jo? Ya, she friggin drowned in the car and Kennedy not only left the scene of the accident, but didn’t say nuthin to nobody until Kopechne’s body was discovered the following day. Fortunately, there’s a happy ending for everyone who didn’t die that night: Kennedy apologized and denied being drunk or banging Mary Jo, was never indicted, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court accepted the request by Kennedys lawyers for the inquest on the matter to be conducted in secret.

Even though they found that a lot of Kennedys claims were not true and that he was at fault, nothing happened and Kennedy easily sailed to re-election as senator the following year, and every year since then.

Radio host Mark Levin told the story last month:

In 2004, I posted this video from the short lived Spike TV cartoon This Just In that references the crash at the end:

Don’t drive with Ted Kennedy!!!!

UPDATE: Former editor of Newsweek and New York Times Magazine, one of Kennedy’s close friends, Ed Klein, tells something called the Diane Rehm Show that Chappaquiddick jokes were high up on the list. full audio of the show here. The line comes at 30:10, or you can just listen to this little wow-moment isolated in the clip below:

I don’t know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, “have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?” That is just the most amazing thing. It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.