"On a night when Eli Manning Tebowed, took some indirect shots at Brett Favre’s texting habits and even poked fun at his own manhood..."

"... he saved his best shot on 'Saturday Night Live' for his older brother, Peyton."

Watch "Little Brothers" here.

More video from last night's show here.

Another politician resigns after texting a naked picture of himself.

It's some nobody in New Jersey. Seriously, who cares? Oh, but this is what we're doing now, expecting an elected official to step down because he crossed the Weiner line.

[Louis] Magazzu, a 53-year-old lawyer who had been an elected county official for more than a decade, apologized to his friends, family and constituents in a statement, but indicated he had been set up.

"I did not know that she was working with an avowed political enemy to distribute these pictures," Magazzu said of the Chicago woman he corresponded with online with for several years but claims he never met. "I have retained counsel to determine what laws may have been broken by the unauthorized distribution of those pictures."

Hey, you already resigned. What are you going to do with that lawyer? Bring on the copyright and tort lawsuits!

I'll quote Dan Savage again:

He didn't do anything with his dick, phone, and internet access that millions of his fellow Americans aren't also doing.... This is part of the new normal, people, just another one of the ways technology is impacting and shaping our lives....

It's obviously not the new normal yet. We're in this halfway position, where millions of Americans are doing something, but America as a culture maintains the staunch opinion that it's completely disgusting and anyone who does it should driven from his job and ostracized unless he goes through a public abasement ritual.

"Can we please accept he was just texting while male?"

Sullivan on Weiner.

"Heavy users of Twitter, as Weiner used to be (he hasn’t posted since June 1), play a complicated strategy game."

Writes Virginia Heffernan:

Like World of Warcraft and Halo, Twitter is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, but with higher real-world stakes. It is grounded in the first principles of game theory, including variations on the Prisoner’s Dilemma. You have to give to get; you have to get to give. Managing these ratios — deciding how much of your attention to expend to win attention to yourself, say — is the lion’s share of the Twitter action....

Anthony Weiner went from a junior congressman to a politician of national significance, thanks in large part to his use of new media. By following back some of his most ardent fans, the way a teen idol might oblige his fans with signed photos, and otherwise working the apparatus of Twitter to drive up his followers and get a hearing for his issues, he managed to create an online persona using the same tricks — digital versions of gerrymandering, triangulating and earmark — that politicians use. Twitter handsomely rewards those with a capacity for risk and an aptitude for the social sciences, especially economics, game theory, psychology and sociology....

Weiner on Twitter was like an amateur pianist on an improv tear....

Well... there's a big difference between risky, edgy writing displayed to the entire public, and initiating private conversations. And when you're saying things in those private conversations that would be horribly embarrassing if they accidentally went out to everybody, then you're obviously in a different realm. You're no longer playing "the game of Twitter." You're doing something else, with somebody you met at the game.

The 6 Possible Meanings of Anthony Weiner's Announcement that He's Checking into Treatment.

1. Anthony Weiner has realized, in all sincerity, that his masturbatory use of the internet is an illness for which there is effective professional treatment, to which he will submit because he desires wellness, because wellness is good and because he needs to be well to do his duty to his wife, his expected child, and his constituents.

2. Anthony Weiner would like to deprive us of the capacity to criticize and mock him him, and if he can successfully impose the illness template on the controversy, the mockers and critiques will — instead of him — seem like the bad people. He hopes.

3. After the "Huma is pregnant" gambit failed to turn off the criticism, Weiner had to move beyond the manly, dignified insistence on privacy and on to the more pathetic, humble cry to be left alone.

4. If he's in treatment, he's physically out of sight. He's off somewhere, and that might work to close the door. Perhaps we'll wait until he emerges again. Time will have passed. Things will have cooled off. And the reemerging Weiner will be the new Weiner, the after-treatment Weiner, and people will — he hopes — speak about who this new man is.

5. Pelosi, Wasserman Schultz, and other Democratic Party leaders told him he had to get the hell out of sight, and he followed orders.

6. Weiner is not really going into treatment. He just needs some time by himself, with his computer, and his wiener.

"Heart you, heart your passion, and as always, heart your balls!"

Another Weiner sexter is revealed.

UPDATE: "Anthony Weiner admits contact with girl, 17." He says that his messages with her were "neither explicit nor indecent."

His love for "I Only Have Eyes For You" by The Flamingos must be a kind of blind love.

Jaltcoh says: "I almost regret finding this, since I've been watching it compulsively over and over. It might not be the best song ever, but it's at least in the running."

This lushly romantic old song makes an interesting soundtrack to the news of the last couple weeks. Why didn't Anthony Weiner only have eyes for Huma Abedin? You could say that if he'd stuck to sexting — i.e., writing — he'd have saved his eyes for her. But he only started the writing when he liked the woman's photograph.

Is there really any love so fixated on one woman that the man can't even see other women? What a grand fantasy of love! I have no idea if this is the best song ever, but it is surely in the running as the song that creates the most unrealistic expectation of what love will be like.

"Weiner is the modern, high functioning man."

Writes Alec Baldwin:

[Weiner] is a very busy man.... He exists under a constant pressure cooker of self-analysis and public appraisal. Like other politicians, he needs something to take the edge off. For some people, regardless of occupation, that could mean booze, drugs, gambling, food or shopping. For high functioning men like Weiner and other officials who have lived through such scandals, who are constantly on the go, that leaves one tried and true source of a reliable high. The affirmation that comes when someone lets you know they want to sleep with you. Or even cyber-sleep with you.

This is sex for many people now....  No time for slowly moving toward one another with a combination of hope and caution, lust and integrity. One can push a button and get something beyond porn. Porn is essentially two dimensional. One sees and hears. Internet sexting can be perceived as three dimensional by adding the component of "feel", regardless of how cheap and unearned those feelings are. That person on the screen is doing whatever they're doing... just for you.....

We tell ourselves that these devices help us communicate more effectively. What they actually do is allow us to bypass the person lying right next to us, across the room from us or at an airport heading home to us, in order to meet our immediate, even inconvenient, needs. To bypass their moods, their current view of us and their own desires, or lack thereof.

It's so sad, isn't it? Baldwin feels sorry for Weiner... and for the modern man.

"So we know that Congressman Weiner talked dirty to Lisa Weiss about fighting for the country in his cape and tights."

"And we know that an underaged girl, who loved Congressman Weiner, apparently quoted him talking about fighting for the country in his cape and tights."

If Weiner never talked about "cape and tights" publicly, the appearance of a "cape and tights" quote in a young girl's Tumblr writings is probative of private communications between the 2.

Kirsten Powers on Anthony Weiner: "This is not about sex. It’s about dominating and inflicting physical pain on a woman."

Powers, who dated him a decade ago, and defended him last week, is now calling on him to resign:

By far the most disturbing information that we have been privy to—there is, no doubt, more out there that we don’t know—is the transcript of a nine-month "sexting" relationship Weiner had with a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. Radar Online posted the transcript, and it is rife with misogyny and distorted views about women. In referring to oral sex, Wiener tells her, “You will gag on me before you c** with me in you” and “[I’m] thinking about gagging your hot mouth with my c***.” This is not about sex. It’s about dominating and inflicting physical pain on a woman, a fantasy the hard-corn porn industry makes billions of dollars on selling to men. You don’t want to gag a woman with your penis unless you have some serious issues with the way you see women.

Hard-corn porn? Hilarious typos aside... let's not go all Women's Studies about the man's efforts at writing about sex. It is not an easy literary task.

Okay. I just went and read the entire Weiner/Weiss transcript. (PDF.)  Read it out loud, in fact! A few thoughts:



1. This is my favorite exchange. (Boldface is Weiner.)

are you as passionate in the sack as u are about politics? I'm getting bored of my f*** friend

baby you'd be crawling for the door to prevent me from f***ing you silly

nice, just what I'm looking for. I want to bang the future mayor of nyc!

making me h**d

It's the idea of getting to be mayor that really excites him.

2. I don't think it's "rife with misogyny and distorted views about women," as Powers put it. The quotes she extracts follow an approach to texting that the 2 have established in which they get each other going with blunt sex talk.

aahh...wish I was in the shower with you to help

you give good h**d?

i've been told really good...I love doing it

wow a jewish girl who sucks c***! this thing is ready to do damage

and swallows every drop. god damn how do I get you here to f*** me?

<= thinking about gagging your hot mouth with my c***

the anticipation of f****** you is driving me crazy! come to vegas so I can suck your c*** for an hour. you must be in the shower...i am getting very nice visual before bed. I'll probably have some filthy dreams about you (again!)"

It goes on like that. He's not saying anything she doesn't welcome. You can easily see that in context. Powers says "This is not about sex." But it obviously is.

3. Based on the entire transcript, I would say that the only problem with his attitude toward Weiss is not "misogyny," but the way he maintains a minimal contact with her over the course of nearly a year, when she keeps begging him to come to Vegas and to "f*** the s***" out of her. I think he knows there's no way he's traveling out there for her, yet she might imagine that he will. It would be decent to tell her that, but, really, she seems like a strong person who knows what she is doing, getting a thrill out of playful intimacy with a celebrity she admires.

4. I have no idea whether Huma Abedin objects to his fooling around like this. For all we know, she reads these written dialogues aloud to him and the 2 of them laugh about it. We do not know.

Where's Huma Abedin? What should she do?

The Daily News headlines: "Huma Abedin is notably absent from husband Anthony Weiner's tearful sexting confession."

Huma Abedin wasn't standing by her man....

A top aide to Secretary of State Clinton, Abedin issued no statements of support for her embattled husband. She was a no-show Monday at two public State Department events.

"I love my wife very much, and we have no intention of splitting up over this," Weiner insisted. "I love her very much, and she loves me."

No intention of splitting up over this. Those last 2 words jumped out at me.

Several political pros cheered her absence yesterday.

"In general, it's very difficult for women constituents to look at the grieving wife up there," said Democratic consultant George Arzt. "It's bad PR."

The better move for Weiner, Arzt said, was "to look like he can take it all by himself and stand up there."

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato took to Twitter with a similar view: "At least Weiner didn't make his wife come out and gaze lovingly at him."

Ha ha. He's a PR expert! He's not advising Weiner in advance. He's dealing with the facts he's stuck with. This is what the PR man says when the wife isn't there. What did the Democratic consultants say when Silda Spitzer stood by her man?

The New York Post headlines: "Weiner & wife worlds apart/:Snake slithers when Huma is globetrotting with Hill."

As the "body woman" to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huma Abedin is tasked with accompanying the former first lady on diplomatic globetrotting missions.

Weiner, it seems, uses the timing of her foreign affairs to pursue domestic ones online.

For instance, last month, while Abedin and Clinton were in Rome meeting with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Weiner was chatting up Texas nursing student Meagan Broussard.

I wonder what conversations Huma is having with Hillary — the world's most famous stander by of her man.

The political power couple met while Abedin was on the campaign trail during Clinton's 2008 White House bid. By 2009, they were engaged....

Didn't Abedin know the kind of man she was marrying? He was 45, and had never married previously. As Hillary's close assistant, she had to be sophisticated about the ways of oversexed, extroverted, narcissistic husbands. What was the marriage supposed to be, anyway? They were conspicuously a glamorous "power couple," for public purposes, but what was he allowed to do in private? What were their understandings? At the press conference yesterday, Weiner said that she asked how he could be so dumb, which made me think what mattered most was that people found out and she was shamed and embarrassed. Was it the public image that mattered, or was it to be a loyal, deeply bonded marriage in private?

Unlike Bill and Hillary, Weiner and Abedin have only been married a year, and they have no children. And the husband's career is deeply compromised at this point. They're not going to become the Democratic Party's next Bill and Hillary. The glamorous power couple is defunct. What happens to the private Tony and Huma?

Will Abedin divorce Weiner?
	Yes.
	No, she'll stand by her man.
	Divorce? She should be able to get an annulment!
pollcode.com free polls

Anthony Weiner: "To be clear, the picture is of me and I sent it."

Transcribed from the live feed.

ADDED: He's deeply sorry. And he confesses that "over the past few years, I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, email, and occasionally, on the phone with women I had met on line. I have exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about 6 women over the last 3 years. For the most part, these communications took place before my marriage, though some have sadly took (sic) place after. To be clear, I have never met any of these women or had physical relationships at any time. I haven't told the truth, and I have done things I deeply regret. I brought pain to the people I care about the most, and the people who believed in me. And for that, I'm deeply sorry."

On to questions from the press.

MORE: A reporter asks about an "X-rated photo" that Andrew Breitbart has implied that he has: "Can you say that is not true?" Weiner: "No, I cannot."

AND: Asked what his wife has known and when, he talks about her awareness of the things done before the marriage, then is pinned down into saying that he deceived her about the famous gray-underpants-tweet just as he deceived the rest of us.

ALSO: Describing his wife's reaction, he says she called him dumb.

AND: I think Weiner did a fine job of coming clean, taking responsibility, and apologizing. I had predicted that he would "announce he's entering treatment for sex addiction. Possibly with a grim/stoical Huma Abedin at his side." I'm glad he didn't do that. He didn't blame anybody else or any "outside force." He didn't use the nonapology "sorry if you were offended" form.

Now, it seemed pretty obvious that he would have continued deceiving us if he could have gotten away with it, but having made the decision to confess and apologize, he did that well. Of course, I'm assuming that there is nothing more to this story than what he spilled today.

He's not resigning, and he's not splitting up with his wife, he said. I don't know if he can control all that. If you were his wife, would you leave him? Realize that you don't know what their understandings are. She may very well accept this behavior. He doesn't physically contact the other women. He does things on line that sophisticated people might characterize as more like enjoying pornography than like having an in-person sexual affair.

NOTE: I'm not suggesting you're unsophisticated if you don't minimize this behavior and liken it to the use of pornography. I'm not even saying that you're unsophisticated if you expect husbands to refrain from using pornography... and from masturbating. But I do think that intelligent spouses draw their lines in different places.

What will Anthony Weiner say?

It's 17 minutes past the time given for his statement to the press. Waiting, I'm reading this, in Radar, and noticing the ad placement:



Is that just an accident or is Oscar Mayer edgier than I'd thought?

Anyway, Radar reports that there's some other woman who got over 200 texts from Anthony Weiner back on May 16th. Reports of phone sex too. And the two never met in person.

UPDATE: Ah! Here he is. He's "made terrible mistakes" and has not been honest. He did send the picture and lie about it.

"I've really never understood the business... of sending these pictures to women."

Can someone please explain to Mark Schmitt — and everyone else with this comprehension problem — why some men send pictures of their genitalia to women?

AND: Here's an even more awkward effort by a Blogginghead to talk about erections. I especially love the way this clip — which I edited to enhance the humorous effect — begins with the diavloggers being all out of synch talking about how lovers can be out of synch. (Warning: the phrase "morning wood" pops up.)

Most sex is bad sex, right?

It's important to draw a line between rape and bad sex. And watch what you sext...



And maybe I should watch my own on-camera gestures...

"The forensic analysis could not establish that Favre sent the objectionable photographs to Sterger."

Aw, come on! Did they examine his penis and compare it to the picture? Yes, the picture may have been fuzzy... but maybe his penis is fuzzy.

Favre has to pay $50,000 anyway, because he "was not candid in several respects during the investigation." Either he failed to cover up in the first instance or he inappropriately covered up in the second.

"What are you wearing? What do you want to do to me? What do you want me to do to you?"

If there's ever a scandal where your sexting is made public, I seriously hope whatever it is you've written is more creative than that. And if you're going to lie and make up sexting to attribute to somebody else, I hope you're not so lame — it's bad enough to be a liar — that you'd invent generic lines like that. Come on, people — cheaters and liars — raise your game.

A question about sexting.

CNN reports:

Phillip Alpert found out the hard way. He had just turned 18 when he sent a naked photo of his 16-year-old girlfriend, a photo she had taken and sent him, to dozens of her friends and family after an argument. The high school sweethearts had been dating for almost 2½ years. "It was a stupid thing I did because I was upset and tired and it was the middle of the night and I was an immature kid," says Alpert.

Orlando, Florida, police didn't see it that way. Alpert was arrested and charged with sending child pornography, a felony to which he pleaded no contest but was later convicted. He was sentenced to five years probation and required by Florida law to register as a sex offender.

"You will find me on the registered sex offender list next to people who have raped children, molested kids, things like that, because I sent child pornography," says Alpert in disbelief, explaining, "You think child pornography, you think 6-year-old, 3-year-old little kids who can't think for themselves, who are taken advantage of. That really wasn't the case."

My question: When did nudity become pornography?