Today is the big day everyone! Thousands and thousands of emails from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin have been released into the wild, and every single news organization will be trying to aerially hunt the news that might be contained within them. Perhaps Sarah Palin has something to worry about, but I have to imagine that this evening, as she relaxes her way into another weekend, she will think on this and laugh. Mainly at us.

Like many other organizations that cover politics, we at The Huffington Post have made our arrangements to obtain the emails, have handed out assignments to reporters and are hopeful that a crowdsource army will help pick up the slack. What are we expecting to find? Who knows? Maybe a lot of Comic Sans. Maybe some penetrating new story about Palin's Alaska reign. Maybe it will be a hot pile of nothing! Yeah, that's right: One possible outcome of this exercise is that it will be a complete bust.

Don't get me wrong. There's always some nominal value in paging through the communiques of a public figure, and Palin -- who's been as public a figure as any -- is a good candidate for this attention. But it's really not hard to think that the joke might somehow be on us. After all, so what if we find something damning about a former public official whose not likely to be anything more than an itinerant rich person for the rest of her life? Perhaps we will uncover some heretofore unknown brilliance that propels her to the top of the 2012 food chain and restores her in the eyes of the public? Are you ready for that, America?

Mainly, I think the media -- and I'm implicating HuffPost, and me, in this as well! -- is going to open itself up to some worthy public criticism. "This is something you'll spend time and resources to cover?" you will say. And you will be right.

If it means anything, your reward will be that you will have a much more enjoyable weekend than any of us.

Ahh, this week. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe: blurry photo renderings of a man's genitals, campaign staffers evacuating en masse from Newt Gingrich. I watched tens of thousands of emails glitter on my laptop screen in a searchable PDF database. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die.

WATCH:

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Senate Republicans are loath to confirm consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren to the directorship of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because of their concerns that she might effectively prevent ordinary Americans from being preyed upon by predatory lenders and shady credit card merchants. And so the Obama administration is sort of stuck: Either they make a recess appointment or they find an alternative.

Paced by a hot scoop from Bloomberg's Carter Dougherty, Robert Schmidt and Mike Dorning, everyone everywhere is talking about what's behind curtain number two:

President Barack Obama is considering nominating Raj Date, a former banker with Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) and Deutsche Bank AG, as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a person briefed on the process.

Date is already at the consumer bureau, working as a top deputy to Elizabeth Warren, the Obama administration adviser who is setting up the new agency. He is on a short list of candidates to become director, the person said.

[...]

Date's nomination could be a way for the Obama administration to tamp down political controversy over the leadership of the consumer agency, which is one of the centerpieces of Dodd-Frank. Warren could urge her supporters to endorse his nomination, and his industry experience has been praised by banks that would fall under the bureau's oversight.

Yes, apparently one essential thing that any candidate for this job would apparently have to have is a friendly disposition toward banks, which are some strange underpinnings for an agency that's sincerely concerned with consumer protection to have. Is that truly what Date brings to the table? Some source for Politico's "Morning Money" newsletter seems to have several simultaneous opinions about the matter!

And as one person close to the matter described it to M.M.: "In theory, an elegant solution. Progressives happy because EW loves Raj and they love whomever EW loves. Banks view Raj as an upgrade from EW because he worked on Wall Street and won't become a media darling, thorn-in-their side. ...

"That's theory. Reality, of course, more complicated. Left reluctant to trade Raj for EW just as Bulls fans wouldn't take Pippen for Jordan. And banks may view Raj as more threatening version of EW because he knows just enough to be dangerous. In theory, she's OK with this idea but who knows what she really thinks."

So, theory and reality have some pretty dramatic intersections. But it appears to be true that while progressives like Date, they really do have that whole "like Pippen for Jordan" mentality on losing Warren. As David Dayen points out, Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future (CAF) has "come out strongly against a Date appointment":

This trial balloon won't get off the ground. Every consumer activist, every informed citizen, an army of commentators, bloggers, organizers and opinion leaders will be simply outraged if Elizabeth Warren is not nominated to head the bureau that she conceived, championed and constructed.

The Warren test cannot be ducked. If the president names someone else, he gets the worst of both worlds. The Republicans will still block the nomination, demanding that the bureau be neutered. And the White House will be savaged across the progressive community for demonstrating once more that it caters far more to bankers than to the customers who are too often their victims.

It really is simple. Name the best person to the job. Take on the fight. Help Americans understand who is on their side. No excuses. No dodges. There are no acceptable alternatives. Elizabeth Warren has demonstrated her leadership, her independence, her loyalty. This is not a hard test.

This isn't anything personal against Date in his current role, which CAF previously supported with glowing blog post. But Dayen says that, while "Date would be a good CFPB Director" (though Warren "would be better"), "[c]alling Date an 'ex-banker', as Bloomberg did in its report, is pretty misleading." The "Warren Test," for all intents and purposes, is a test of President Barack Obama's cojones.

Historically, Obama has been fairly conflict averse, and with the debt-ceiling pageant raging all around him (and drawing a ridiculous amount of media coverage, compared to past instances in which the debt ceiling became "newsy"), we've reached one of those moments where the White House tends to back away from additional partisan sparring.

With an election year fight over standing up for the financial well-being of ordinary American consumers, however, this is just the fight the White House should be seeking! Especially since the GOP won't allow Date to be confirmed, either.

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With Anthony Weiner's Twitter trouble still fresh in our minds, let's take a moment to address how elected officials should proceed, from here on out, in their dealings with the popular social media service. I'd imagine that there will be any number of "think pieces" to come on the matter, as well as the obligatory ruminations on "how we live now" in "this modern world." I'd like to uncloud and demystify all of these matters in advance, by offering some simple solutions.

So, politicians! Let's begin by discussing how all of these terrible scandals can be avoided by taking measures to fully optimize your Twitter experience. I've used my Twitter account to explore the matter fully, and I can tell you that all you need to do is follow a simple and intuitive process:

1. Browse to your Twitter account, and log in.

2. Over on the right hand side of your screen, at the top of the page, you will see your Twitter handle next to a pull-down menu.

3. Click on that pull-down menu, and select "Settings."

4. The page should open on the tab marked "Account." If for some reason it doesn't, just click on the "Account" tab.

5. Once you are on the "Account" tab page, scroll down to the bottom of the page.

6. Click where it says, "Deactivate my account."

7. Deactivate your account.

8. There! You are now worry-free!

You think I'm joking about this, of course. But I'm not. I'm absolutely serious about this. You need to deactivate your account this very moment.

Right about now, you're probably thinking, "But why should I have to get rid of my Twitter account? I haven't sent out any crotch pictures using Twitter?" That we know of, Congresscritter. That we know of. But here's the thing: maybe you aren't transmitting or receiving stroke pics to and from your Twitter followers, but I've been watching your various misadventures with Twitter for some time. I've seen Senator John McCain use his Twitter to speak of his important feelings for Snooki. I've seen Peter Hoekstra idiotically breach security protocol on an Iraq-bound codel using Twitter. I've watched ignorance about hashtags turn a campaign website into a font of opposition research that worked against the candidate. And I've seen a partisan coup in the Virginia State Senate fail because one of the people involved couldn't wait to tweet about it, so he gave up the game before it had even begun.

And yes, of course, I've seen Chuck Grassley attempt to use Twitter, only to come up with stuff like this: "Xtra delite of #99countytour: gr8 per4mance byWSioux Vocal jazz&DirktorJimG; at Haywarden Hoso Tues nite I really njoy." I know that complaints about this make you all testy, Chuck, but you have to understand, most of us are managing to tweet using the English language. And many more are able to tweet in their native tongue. So there's no excuse for your Twitter output to look like it was written by a fat-fingered poltergeist from Mars.

Let me put it this way. Two winters ago, Newark Mayor Cory Booker was widely praised as a Twitter innovator in politics because he tweeted to people as he perambulated around the city, shoveling snow. Last winter, Cory Booker was praised for the same thing. I imagine that this winter, he'll be praised again. But my takeaway is that one politician, named Cory Booker has figured out a productive use for Twitter. And even in that instance, he's actually being praised for the way he found a productive use for a snow shovel.

It's really about what you all are shoveling, and my verdict is that you are doing it wrong.

Now, I'm sure you are going to protest and say that Twitter is a unique and innovative way for you to communicate with voters. Anthony Weiner said much the same thing at his weepy press conference yesterday, in what had to have been the most poorly-timed moment of social media evangelism in the history of humans. I hate to break it to you, but Twitter has not proven to be a game-changer in public servant-to-constituent communications. (Unless we're talking about the crotchshots, and in that case, I concede you have a point!) Lawmakers have been elected to office and re-elected to office for time immemorial without Twitter, and you can be too.

Remember how a few weeks ago, Mitt Romney put out a web video that talked about how he was forming a presidential exploratory committee? His initial announcement went out on Twitter, and people were just straight losing their minds about how cool that was. Yeah, man! Mitt Romney's taking his message right to the people, dude! He's not reliant on the media gatekeepers to get his message out! He's going unfiltered and direct to the voters, man!

I can't even begin to tell you what astounding bullshit that is! Mitt Romney doesn't even have 50,000 twitter followers. And many of the people who follow him are journalists. So, Mitt Romney took his announcement right to those media gatekeepers, and reaped the added benefit of all of those media gatekeepers writing a story about how he was breaking with tradition and being hip and cool and social media enabled, dude! That's basically the only skillful use of Twitter I've seen from politicians, and it involved an elaborate con.

You all need to accept the fact that you're really not doing anything amazing with Twitter. So why are you using it? My guess is that you find the process of accruing followers on Twitter feeds your need for validation and instant gratification. Which is exactly how Anthony Weiner used it. So while none of you have gone as far to ruin your lives as damagingly as he did, it's nevertheless true that you are all carriers of the same disease.

Lots of people are asking, "What was Anthony Weiner thinking?" And I'm surprised this is perplexing people! Anthony Weiner was thinking the same thing the rest of you think, 24 hours a day, and seven days a week: "I am invisible and bulletproof." It's easy to see why you guys think you're invisible: y'all tried one or two things to solve the unemployment crisis, gave up, and got the media to report that you ran out of ideas. And it's easy to see why you guys think you're bulletproof: even in an election cycle that was supposedly riven with "anti-incumbent rage," 87% of House incumbents and 84% of Senate incumbents retained their seats.

What Weiner found out, to his enduring humiliation, is that Twitter is one of the most transparent and shrapnel-ridden venues on the internet. So if you want to have any shot at maintaining your imperviousness, you have got to get off Twitter right now. No one thinks that this episode will mark the end of social media-enabled scandals. We're just curious how Weiner's antics will be topped. And one of you will find a way to top them.

Oh, I should mention: if you're a female member of Congress, you can ignore everything I've written above. For now. We'll be watching. As for the rest of you: SHUT IT DOWN.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

There is a school of thought that says when a Congressman is caught out in a sex scandal, the one thing they should never, ever do is resign from office. That seems to be the path that Representative Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) is on, the hope being that he can outlive this problem and soldier on -- as President Bill Clinton and Senator David Vitter (R-La.) have done -- and avoid a long period on the fringes of policymaking -- as New York Governor Eliot Spitzer did. As Matt Yglesias advised: "The key thing is to keep your wits about you, and refuse to resign."

Of course, if a key ingredient to this strategy is remaining in close proximity to one's wits, that battle was lost for Weiner the moment he said that his junk-shot was, in fact, "out there" but that he could not with "certitude" say that the bulging image that destroyed Twitter was his. That strikes me as being essentially witless, and it all but set the stage for the new images that became publicly disclosed yesterday and his abrupt about-face and admissions.

So, should Weiner resign? You know, why not, right? As has been dutifully pointed out already, Weiner was widely known to be using his platform at the House of Representatives as a springboard for a future run at the New York City mayorship. As such, he used his office primarily as a means to mount a publicity campaign for those ambitions, casting himself as the hard-charging cable-news liberal firebrand. It's now all but certain that those ambitions will come for naught, so what's he going to use the office for now? A determined fight to end mohair subsidies, once and for all? Outside of seeking a Steve Zissou-style vengeance on the goat that gored him, Weiner's got little going on in the area of personal policy initiatives.

And if Weiner's district gets cut to bits during the redistricting process, sticking it out with the faith that his own constituents will return him to office isn't a path that leads anywhere. So why stick it out? Well, I have a feeling that Weiner wants to make some kind of point about all of this. Central to his self-defense going forward will be two concepts -- that he did nothing illegal, and while what he did do was wrong, it didn't come at the expense of his job.

As to the matter of illegality, for the time being, Weiner is correct. This is America, and by God, we are a nation where consenting adults are allowed to have hot, sexy chat with each other and distribute images of their genitalia between themselves to their hearts' content. Of course, things get slightly dicier if it comes out that Weiner was pursuing this hobby on the taxpayer dime or otherwise expended government resources. Allegations to this effect have already been made, and it could end up ensuring that Weiner receives some sort of slap on the wrist from some Ethics Committee. To be sure, I won't personally care if Weiner is satisfying himself on his office phone, because at least that detracts from the time he would ordinarily be speaking to lobbyists and screwing me in the process.

So why should Weiner resign, then? Well let's go out on a limb, I guess, and say: He lied!

Now let's be clear: that Weiner lied about his shenanigans to his constituents should only matter to his constituents and they can remove him themselves if they please the next time he's up for re-election. So, as far as his constituents are concerned, they are in need of no special dispensation.

Similarly, I don't much care that he lied to the media. Congresscritters lie to the media all the time, and if they want to come off all especially aggrieved in this instance, I'll simply point out that their ordinary process of dealing with a lie is as follows:

1. They hear the lie.
2. They scribble the lie down on their steno pads.
3. They tell their readers/viewers that the lie is actually an "interesting point of view" in a "debate on the issues."

So, the media can go and snack on it. Here's the part I can't reconcile: when this story broke and Weiner began lying about it, he knew full well that this caused an unholy amount of upheaval in the life of Genette Cordova -- the women to whom the crotchshot image was sent, via Twitter -- as well as numerous other women and girls whose only crime was that they followed him on Twitter. And yes, we can say that it was the unrestrained hordes of the media and the partisan blogosphere that mounted up and rode into that despairing crevasse, but the simple fact of the matter is that Weiner could have ended that instantly has he just come clean in the first place. Let's recall that Weiner said this, to Wolf Blitzer:

"Please, I want to ask you, does this person, what did she do, beyond tweet something that she's a follower of mine, you can probably find hundreds of people that did that. I would hope that you would leave these people alone. I mean, come hound me but they didn't do anything wrong for following me on Twitter."

Ha, yes. He would "hope" that the media "would leave these people alone." He won't personally come clean and bring about the cessation of that activity, but by all means, come "hound" him, and be told that you can't say with certitude that this particular crotch shot is one of the ones that is "out there."

Regardless of what fruit is borne from further investigations and Ethics Committee ministrations, Weiner really cannot at this moment truthfully say that the harm done here is confined to himself, his family and people with whom he entered into consensual quasi-sexual relationships, who were perfectly capable of gaming out how all this would end for themselves.

By perpetuating his lie, Weiner failed to minimize the harm meted out to perfectly innocent people. As far as I can tell, causing harm to innocent women isn't a thing we should tolerate in our public servants, and it doesn't comport to any progressive values of which I am aware. So the right thing for Weiner to do is accept some responsibility and get a Representative into that seat who can uphold the ideological values Weiner fumbled, by agreeing in this instance to metaphorically cut off his own head.

Either one will do!

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In the latter years of his Senate career, Evan Bayh won every single battle he fought. A less effective stimulus package? Bayh fought for it and won. Defeats for EFCA and cap and trade? Check. The public option stripped from the Affordable Care Act? Despite the fact that Bayh told David Axelrod and and Jim Messina that the mood of his fellow moderate Democrats was that "We're all screwed if you don't get something real on health care," and made it clear in December of 2009 that "the health care measure was the kind of public policy he had come to Washington to work on" and that he "did not want to see the satisfied looks on the faces of Republican leaders if they succeeded in blocking the measure," Bayh backed the watering down of the Affordable Care Act and got his way on that too.

But Bayh really, really wanted the Senate to create a special deficit commission (the President's own commission not being sufficient, for some reason), and when he didn't get his way on that, he quit the Senate in a snit and rode his waaah-mbulance back to Indiana, vowing, "If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.”

What has he done with his life since then? Well, he joined Apollo Global Management as a "senior public policy advisor" (lobbyist) and became a Fox News contributor.

And now, he's joining up as a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

UPDATE: Because there are legal distinctions here that apply to the term "lobbyist," let me be clearer. Bayh's activities won't technically make him an officially anointed "lobbyist." He's like Tom Daschle: a creature we refer to here as an "influence launderer":

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle will soon move from one big lobbying firm to another even bigger lobbying firm. It's a career boost for a first-rate K Street powerbroker -- just don't call him a lobbyist.

Lobbyists, after all, are required to register with Congress and file quarterly reports disclosing their actions on behalf of clients. The South Dakota Democrat, like a growing number of people in his line of work, has made sure he doesn't have to do that.

"I've not made a call nor made a visit since I left the Senate on behalf of a client. And I don't have any expectation that I'll do that in the future," Daschle told the New York Times recently.

By claiming that he never picks up the phone on his clients' behalf, Daschle is not legally obliged to declare himself a lobbyist, even if all his work for those clients falls under the general definition of "lobbying activity." That means he can keep his clients' identities and how much they pay him entirely secret.

Anyway, in America, influence and access are fungible goods, and Bayh is bringing his to the U.S. Chamber. What will he do there? Oh, he and former Bush chief of staff Andy Card are going to fight government regulation, thanks for asking! Per Peter Stone:

The Chamber’s expanded effort for regulatory relief and reform, which began last fall, is aimed across all agencies of government. Donohue’s memo cites several choice targets including: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Donohue explained in his new memo that business supports “sensible regulations…But we’ve gone too far. America is sinking under the weight of an ever expanding regulatory state.”

The modest goals of the "newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau" include making the fine print of credit card and mortgage agreements more consumer friendly -- and by that I mean, less riddled with obtuse tricks and traps that screw ordinary people. Evan Bayh would rather these tricks and traps continue, apparently.

I'm glad they'll be taking on the Securities and Exchange Commission, too! Despite the fact that it's currently being run by Mary Schapiro, the former FINRA head who fumbled oversight over Bernie Madoff and who is best known for being "well-liked and acceptable to everyone" despite having been (or actually probably because of the fact that she was) "at the very center of a failed regulatory process for the past two decades," I suppose there's some slim chance the SEC might start performing robust oversight. And everyone knows that it was definitely onerous government regulation that led to largest financial crisis in our lives!

Mother Jones' Andy Kroll has more:

The Chamber's hiring of Bayh, a big name in Washington circles, will only help its efforts to delay or kill new regulatory legislation in Congress. Indeed, Donohue's memo touts how the Chamber has filed legal briefs to challenge the validity of President Obama's health care reform bill; successfully delayed a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule on giving shareholders a say on corporate directors; unveiled plans to undermine the clout of the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and delayed a rule forcing companies to disclose when they use conflict minerals from the Congo in their products. Bayh and Card, the memo says, will help the Chamber push this pro-corporate agenda in Washington and beyond.

Oh, wow! They're opposing a rule that would force "companies to disclose when they use conflict minerals from the Congo?" That's big leagues, Evan! A chance to finally get some blood on your hands!

At any rate, you can never underestimate Evan Bayh's ability to find new pieces of himself to sell off to pimps. At the rate he's going, I'm quite sure that in the coming years, whatever is left of his disowned soul will end up chopped up and stuffed into the mezzanine tranche of a synthetic derivative.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Anyone who's followed the latter-day activities of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich knows that his public appearances are a festival of utter randomness. There's poetry and talk of cowboys and calls for the interrogation of Rahm Emanuel and sudden cameo appearances from a rambling Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and, of course, his seamless embrace of Celebrity Apprenticehood.

But oh my, his fifth day on the witness stand in his own corruption trial has trumped them all! As Natasha Korecki reports in the Chicago Sun-Times, Blago, had he been appointed to the United States Senate, would have happily returned the favor by transforming himself into Rod Blagojevich: Bin Laden Hunter.

His lawyer, Aaron Goldstein, asked if Blagojevich talked about appointing himself to the Senate "in exchange for going to Afghanistan and hunting down Osama bin Laden."

"Yes," A straight-faced Blagojevich replied, bringing yet another prosecution objection, hushed snickers and head-scratching in the courtroom.

Ha, ha: Blago's own lawyer brought this up because he wanted everyone to know that his client would have been willing to decamp from the U.S. Senate to spend his time bumbling around -- in the wrong country, mind you -- on a mission to kill bin Laden with his own hands.

I'm sure someone can work up a pretty good sitcom pitch from this, so have at it.

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So, I'm reading this latest piece by Neil Irwin in the Washington Post, titled "Manufacturing slowdown the latest sign the recovery is faltering," and I'm instantly grabbed by the opening line:

"The economic recovery is faltering, and Washington is running out of ways to get it back on track."

Right away, I'm hit by the shocking implications of this, and I think, "Wait a minute! You mean all this time, 'Washington' has been churning out job-creating idea after job-creating idea and I somehow missed this?" I seem to recall that only two weeks ago, the "efforts to fix a static unemployment problem," were actually "nonexistent." Now I learn that they've been so existent that they've run out of solutions! As you might imagine, I'm thus primed to get hit with an extensive list of these efforts. "I can't wait to highlight the myriad ways that lawmakers have dealt with the massive unemployment crisis, through their constant and attentive ideation," I think.

Unfortunately, the pickings turned out to be slim:

The weak expansion comes despite government efforts to boost it: a payroll tax cut that took effect in January and an initiative by the Federal Reserve to pump $600 billion into the ailing economy by buying Treasury bonds. But the Fed is unlikely to take further action, and Congress is focused on reducing the budget deficit instead of tax cuts or new spending that might spur economic activity.

Actually, this list of examples -- all two of them! -- doesn't go far enough. "Washington" also passed a stimulus package in 2008, and if you recall it came out all half-assed through a combination of GOP obstruction and the timidity of Democrats like Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who helped to diddlepick it into inefficacy. The resulting package was thus deemed too small by critics that spanned the ideological spectrum from Paul Krugman to Jon Huntsman.

There was also that time President Barack Obama hired General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, to do some job-creation stuff, which isn't too much to ask for in exchange for not paying anything in taxes and sending lots of American jobs overseas, I guess!

But it is true that, now, "Congress is focused on reducing the budget deficit." That's actually something of an understatement. As the joblessness crisis continues on and on and the overall indebtedness of households grows and grows and ordinary Americans continue to wonder why no one seems to care about what they're experiencing, deficit panic has set in. And yet, the solutions being discussed all are geared toward what amount, precisely will be set on the American people to shoulder in the form of further cuts to their health and retirement and quality of life, and how the "solution" can be crafted to ensure the reelection of incumbents.

And as always, the ongoing effort to alleviate everyone's deficit panic largely omits any discussion of the obvious and well-documented causes of those deficits. Because politicians have largely given up on ameliorating the unemployment crisis, the media has given up on covering it. I mean, how can they be expected to give column inches to a large, unfolding calamity when the people who they've worked so hard to gain "access" to never bring it up? If you were to suggest that they are delinquent in their duties to their constituents, why, those Important People might take that as an act of hostility, or something!

Of course, here's where you might be wondering, "Well, what if they are all out of ideas?" Well, like the Post reports, we've done the "payroll tax holiday" and the Federal Reserve has taken some action. But there are plenty of ideas that have been left on the table. Here are some that HuffPost's own Dan Froomkin has suggested. There! Now no one can possibly be "running out of ways" to get the economy going again and getting Americans back to work.

Naturally, if the Washington Post wants to report that the economic recovery is faltering because "Washington" can't be bothered to do anything about it, that would be welcome. It would also be very surprising!

Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.

Yesterday, after discovering that his "Plan A" of "yelling at the media, forever" wasn't going to work, a more humble and forthcoming Representative Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) sat down to be interviewed about the ongoing kick-off-the-summer psuedo-event that is "Weinergate." Actually, he sat down for lots of interviews! You could choose between an interview with Luke Russert or Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. You could catch him on Fox with Bret Baier. If you were lucky -- I mean, "I got struck by lightning twice in the face on the way to Starbucks" lucky -- you could watch him talk with Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

As for me, I watched all of them. You should never doubt that you have made better career choices than I have, okay? In all four, Weiner stuck to a set of similar claims, and they were:

1) People make fun of the name "Weiner." (Because it is a slang term for "penis.")
2) He did not send a photo of his wang out on Twitter.
3) Rather, he was "hacked" or "pranked."
4) He has some dudes looking into the matter.
5) He'd rather talk about the debt ceiling.

That was, essentially, the consistent and declarative portion of Weiner's end of the discussion. But, as you might suspect, this didn't so much bring this story to a conclusion as much as it did raise the curtain anew. Why? Well, because there were also many moments during these interviews that were awkward or confusing or otherwise head scratch-inducing. Here are those moments:

An epidemic of illicit crotch shots

WEINER, to Blitzer: "It seems to me that this is what goes on in the internet world, the social media world in 2011 and sometimes this happens. Hundreds and thousands of times, just about every week, people have spam and hacking that goes on."

The internet: It's a wild and woolly place. But outside of Weiner and Brett Favre, we actually haven't had too many of these my-penis-somehow-went-viral moments. I'm not sure that this is the instance where you want to make the "Oh, this happens to everybody" defense. You know, sure. Hacking? It happens. I've had my Twitter account hacked before. Want to know what happened? I got a lot of messages from followers that read, "Hey, Jason, your Twitter got hacked. I know this because I know you would never tweet me this crap."

Bring in the Federales!

BAIER, to Weiner: "We talked to a DOJ computer crimes prosecutor and he said that it would take one call to the FBI, and they would subpoena Twitter and within five minutes you could probably get the IP address that this happened from."

Oh, really? Well, I'll tell you what: if I'm ever in Anthony Weiner's position, I'm going to do that! That sounds like an awesomely effective avenue to begin an investigation. Weiner, however, is going to opt to have people that he hired get to the bottom of the matter. You can, on one hand, see this as a suggestion of confidence: Weiner believes that he can resolve this to everyone's satisfaction. On the other hand, you don't hire investigators and tell them, "Find out if I'm guilty of this thing everyone's talking about," do you?

This statement just lacks credibility.

WEINER, to Blitzer: "I follow you, by the way. Excellent Twitter feed."

I find it hard to believe that Wolf Blitzer has an "excellent" Twitter feed, or even an "adequate" one.

Now is not the time for your trademarked hyperbole, I think.

WEINER, to Russert: "One of the things that goes on on Twitter is that you form networks with other people as a way of getting more followers. And that is something that has been done since time immemorial that is now being criminalized."

Huh? Who's criminalizing it? No one is criminalizing that. For that matter, no one is criminalizing the exchange of crotch shots over Twitter's direct message function. You can totally do that in America!

WEINER, to Baier: "I don't think this is a federal case. I don't think this is the second rising of bin Laden."

I tell you what, if sending a crotch-shot on Twitter was the second rising of bin Laden, it would be a vast improvement over the first rising of bin Laden, where thousands of humans got murdered.

Now is not the moment to put the media on trial.

WEINER, to Blitzer: "Please, I want to ask you, does this person, what did she do, beyond tweet something that she's a follower of mine, you can probably find hundreds of people that did that. I would hope that you would leave these people alone. I mean, come hound me but they didn't do anything wrong for following me on Twitter."

It's true, of course, that all kinds of people have been dragged into this matter, solely because they are part of Weiner's social network, by members of the media and the blogosphere. But in fairness, I'm pretty sure Wolf Blitzer hasn't been a part of this. He's actually doing what Weiner is asking -- hounding him and not random people on Twitter -- so this is a case Weiner should be making to other people.

You're kidding about your wife being a "private person," right?

WEINER, to Blitzer: "She went the entire campaign in 2008 with probably most Americans not knowing that she was the traveling Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton."

So long as those Americans missed the constant coverage of Huma Abedin's "semi-legendary status for maintaining an improbable level of chic on the campaign trail" and the gossip items about her engagement to Anthony Weiner, or have stopped reading Vogue, I can believe this.

Wait. What?

WEINER, to Blitzer: "I can tell you that there are photographs."

That's how Weiner answered the question, "Have you ever taken a picture of yourself like this?" I'm pretty sure the right way to answer this question is "No."

This would be a good time to start paying attention to the technical stuff.

WEINER, to Maddow: "I'll be honest with you, you completely lost me with the technical stuff at the outset here."

Here, Weiner is referring to a previous segment on the Rachel Maddow Show in which Maddow did a brief rundown of the efforts being made to examine this incident from a technical standpoint. It would probably be a good time for Weiner to start learning about some of this stuff, especially considering that some of the work that's been done is potentially exculpatory. But, you know, at least feign interest!

But let's face it, this is the biggie, right here.

WEINER, to Russert: "You know, I can't say with certitude."

That's how Weiner answered the question: "But that's not a picture of you?" Again, I'm pretty sure that's not the right answer.

Look, this has already been said many times over, but personally speaking, I've spent my whole life learning to use my wang, and taking care of it, and keeping it safe from the harm that's represented by free kicks in soccer and stuff like that. My wang and I, we have developed a certain rapport. And I'm particular about the clothing I drape o'ertop of it. So, I'm really pretty certain that if you showed me a picture of my crotch, I could instantly tell you if it was mine or not.

Of course, maybe Weiner is riffing on the nature of uncertainty. Is true certitude possible? That sort of thing. First, that's a discussion for another day. Second, that's NOT a discussion I would have with Luke Russert, who -- apart from maybe a conversation about the epistemology of hot wings -- is not someone I would kick it with, Philosophy 101-style.

Say it with certitude! Not to be mercenary, but even if you want to lie, it's not like anyone in the media is going to ask you to put on a pair of grey boxer briefs, achieve tumescence, and submit yourself for comparison?

Oh, right. I forgot about Politico. Nevertheless, my point remains: this is probably the worst possible answer to this question. I mean, do you want to leave people with the suspicion that this was you?

What suspicions does Anthony Weiner want to leave us with?

WEINER, to Maddow: "Well, it could be [a private photograph of Weiner's] or it could be a photograph that is taken out of context or manipulated or changed in some way...or maybe it's a photograph that was dropped into an account from somewhere else...I don't want to cast this net wider by saying it was someone else."

No, no! That's exactly what you want to do! Cast a wider net! Suggest it's someone else! Isn't that the whole point of your "investigation?" To reveal the provenance of the photograph, and, in so doing, potentially reveal the malefactor? Surely you want to be the person that helps to make these determinations!

Anthony Weiner doesn't want to be the person who makes those determinations.

WEINER, to Maddow: "I'll leave it to your viewers to make that determination."

Right, well, now you know why you'll keep getting asked about this.

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As you probably already know, the most important meeting of modern political minds happened this week in New York City when fake presidential candidate Donald Trump met up with semi-fake presidential candidate Sarah Palin to discuss whatever it is that wealthy pseudo-celebrities discuss when they're not out creating pseudo-events other than the one they're creating by meeting up in the first place.

And Trump really rolled out the red carpet for Palin, taking her and her family out for a slice of pizza at Famous Famiglia's in Times Square, whose fare has recently been described as "a slice that tastes like a manila folder with Ragu slathered all over it."

Well, on Wednesday night's "Daily Show," host Jon Stewart had something to say about Trump's taste in New York style pizza. A lot of something to say about it, actually. Beginning with:

STEWART: I've eaten there, that pizza is fine. I used to eat there a lot when I was working next door at Caroline's Comedy Club. It's good convenience pizza. Back in the 80s there weren't a lot of food options in Times Square. It was Famiglia's pizza or edible underwear from one of the porn shops. Then Giuliani took that option away. You know, Donald, I don't want to say anything, but if you're taking an esteemed visitor to get real New York pizza, Famiglia's ain't it.

With Stewart's audience loudly concurring, Stewart went on an extended rant in which he joked that Famiglia's could also be found at "terminal four of the Phoenix airport," offered up several more authentic pizza options, critcized Trump's slice stacking, finally reaching a height of apoplexy at the sight of Trump going at his pie with a fork, as if he were from outer space or something. Then Stewart moved on to a proper demonstration of both New York-style pizza-eating technique and New York City-style profanity, before concluding: "Based on how you eat pizza, Donald, I want to see your long form birth certificate. I don't think you were really born in New York."

One thing that Stewart didn't touch on was why Trump, who is ostensibly a rich and well-connected man, would drag Palin to Time Square to eat at a chain restaurant. Well, as Village Voice music editor Maura Johnston recalled on Wednesday, "Just FYI, Palin and Trump's visit to Famous Famiglia was also a little bit of synergy with The Celebrity Apprentice." Indeed, various Celebrity Apprentice "stars" were dispatched to Famiglia's 8th and Broadway location back in October, to promote the show.

So what drew Trump and Palin to Famiglia's? The sucking vortex of reality-goddamned-television. What did you expect?

WATCH:

International users click here to watch this clip on the "Daily Show" website.

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is usually described as a doctrinaire libertarian, and in many of his policy complaints, this is reliably borne out. For example, Paul is of the opinion that the Americans With Disabilities Act is an egregious infringement on liberty, when the "common sense solution" is obviously to herd wheelchair-bound workers to the first floor of every office building.

That's what Paul believes and he usually sticks to it. So I'm as surprised as the next guy to learn that Paul now believes that certain people should be jailed for merely exercising their right to assemble under the Constitution of the United States.

According to Alex Seitz-Wald, Paul's sudden shift on civil liberties all went down on Sean Hannity's radio show last Friday:

PAUL: I'm not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they've been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they've been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn't be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that's really an offense that we should be going after -- they should be deported or put in prison.

Hey, now! Suddenly we're deporting and jailing people for attending speeches? Um ...

Paul's suggestion that people be imprisoned or deported for merely attending a political speech would be a fairly egregious violation on the First Amendment, not to mention due process. What if someone attended a radical speech as a curious bystander? Should they too be thrown in prison? And who defines what is considered so "radical" that it is worth imprisonment?

These are good questions. I'd hate to see Rand Paul get hoisted with his own petard. (Dearie me! Am I even still allowed to talk about petards in public?)

Well, what do the courts say about the matter? Here's Glenn Greenwald:

Indeed, the First Amendment not only protects the mere "attending" of a speech "promoting the violent overthrow of our government," but also the giving of such a speech. The government is absolutely barred by the Free Speech clause from punishing people even for advocating violence. That has been true since the Supreme Court's unanimous 1967 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader who had threatened violence against political officials in a speech.

See, that's what I thought. Naturally, I have no doubt that somewhere out there someone is assembled in a gathering of free citizens, listening to someone discuss the violent overthrow of the government. I'm not unconcerned about that, but the standard libertarian line I grew up with was, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

At any rate, there is already a criminal statute that penalizes the agreement of a group to commit a criminal act -- it's called "conspiracy." It mainly focuses on persons who are actively and overtly participating in plans to commit a crime. I'm guessing that one good way to evaluate whether or not a "radical group" is going to escalate from merely talking about overthrowing the government to actually pursuing the furtherance of such a plan is to let people freely attend that group's speeches without fear that they'll be clapped in irons.

RELATED:
Rand Paul, Supposed Defender Of Civil Liberties, Calls For Jailing People Who Attend 'Radical Political Speeches' [ThinkProgress]

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Yesterday, we brought you word that Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder -- in his continuing effort to mount a revenge fantasy in the courts over an old article in the Washington City Paper titled "The Cranky Redskin Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder" -- had subpoenaed the Washington Post to obtain any or all communications between that piece's author, Dave McKenna, and Post sports blogger Dan Steinberg. The subpoena request included "telegrams," because it is apparently the 19th century.

For Snyder and his P.R./legal team, it's growing more and more apparent that this entire effort is aimed at intimidating the media. That's sort of an understatement, actually.

This whole matter began with Snyder's attorney warning the hedge fund that owned the City Paper's publisher, "We presume defending such litigation would not be a rational strategy for an investment firm such as yours. Indeed, the cost of litigation would presumably quickly outstrip the value of the Washington City Paper."

And only last April, Snyder's flack, Tony Wyllie actually told an "Ethics in Sports Media" panel, "Some people ask, are you firing a warning shot at other members of the media, and I'd say yes."

In other words, Snyder is mounting what is known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (also known as a "SLAPP" suit), which is defined as "a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition." And Snyder's may be the most ham-handed SLAPP suit of all time, given that they keep publicly telegraphing these specific intentions, and have moved their case to the District of Columbia, a notoriously unfriendly place for SLAPP plaintiffs.

But it gets better! An attentive reader brought something to my attention that I had missed: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn), announced last week in Roll Call that he was going to draft legislation to provide anti-SLAPP protection for all Americans by federal mandate. And you'll never guess who inspired Cohen to act:

Washington Redskins fans no doubt have been enjoying the ongoing legal battle between team owner Dan Snyder and the Washington City Paper, which published a disparaging column about Snyder and his ownership of the Redskins. But Snyder’s lawsuit against the newspaper highlights a much more serious issue -- the need for federal legislation to protect the First Amendment rights of all Americans against strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs.

The City Paper’s column was admittedly harsh but well within the bounds of free speech, especially about a public figure. Snyder was understandably angry, but instead of fighting speech with more speech, he chose to use the courts for his personal revenge. Whatever you may think of Snyder and the Redskins, the courts are not the appropriate forum for resolving these sorts of grudges.

Cohen's legislation is called the PETITION Act (which stands for "Protecting the Expression and Transmission of Ideas and Thoughts In Our Nation Act"), and it would provide a means to put an end to merit-less SLAPP suits before they become too costly for defendants by granting SLAPP victims the means to seek early dismissals, postpone discovery requests and recover costs.

"This bill does not shut the courthouse door to those with valid claims," Cohen says. "It merely provides an expedited process for filtering out suits designed to intimidate and harass citizens exercising their First Amendment rights."

If enacted, this law will be the first time Dan Snyder's actions achieved a positive societal outcome.

RELATED:
"Cohen: Protect Free Speech by Combating SLAPPs," Roll Call

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I don't know if you all are up to speed on "Weinergate" -- also known as "How I Spent My Memorial Day Weekend" by Everybody With A Twitter Account And No Life -- but over the weekend, Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-N.Y.) twitter account direct-messaged some crotch-shot to some unwitting woman in Seattle, and the ensuing pseudo-event caused a Minor Scandal that Raised Questions.

For a good primer on what happened, just click here.

Now, I'll point out that I have no answer to the question, "Did Weiner Tweet His Ween Or Did Someone Hack His Stack?"

But I'm obviously very hopeful that whoever ends up being the wrongdoer will be subsequently executed by Seal Team Six in a strike on that person's compound, so that America can celebrate at Ground Zero and get closure.

In the meantime, however, you should definitely go on over to the Daily Caller and participate in the Most Important Online Poll Of The Past Six Hours, where you will be asked to adjudicate for yourself whether the offending photo is actually of Weiner's crotch, based upon another photo or Weiner's crotch.

Indeed, I am being serious about this, apparently:

Is the lewd image that appeared on the congressman's Twitter account of the man himself? Or is it someone else entirely?

Take a look at the originally tweeted image below (Exhibit A) and a picture of Rep. Weiner marching along in a June 29, 2009 gay pride parade in New York City (Exhibit B), and vote in the poll (and leave your comments) below!

Yes. Please participate. Mentally heft Weiner's member for weight. Imagine yourself hoisting it out of, and back into, his Y-fronts. Appreciate the angle of the dangle. Visualize the heat of the meat. And register your opinion!

Personally, I think the photo that originally rocked Twitter was one of Thomas Friedman's crotch, but I can appreciate how controversial I'm being when I assert that.

I can also appreciate how I will never be held accountable by anyone for saying this!

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

A little over a month ago, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder published an op-ed in the Washington Post, explaining that he's not such a bad guy -- in fact, he was the son of a journalist! -- and the only reason he was suing the Washington City Paper was because metaphors about Agent Orange confuse him.

No one should have thought that the lawsuit was a warning shot at the media for offering critical coverage of Snyder and his exploits. That is, until two days later, when Snyder's flack Tony Wyllie actually said out loud that the lawsuit was intended as a warning shot at the media.

Well, today, Snyder sends his thanks to the Washington Post in the form of a subpoena, just like he learned to do from his journalist father.

But why on earth is he subpoenaing the Post? Oh, because people who work there might have noticed Dave McKenna's "The Cranky Redskin Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder," and maybe even talked about it with McKenna, or tweeted about it on Twitter.

The City Paper's managing editor Mike Madden explains:

According to the court papers Snyder's legal team sent the Post, they're interested in learning why blogger Dan Steinberg linked to City Paper's "Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder." Steinberg writes about the off-field antics of just about every sports figure in the area, and he's often linked to McKenna's work; the two are friendly rivals on the same culture-and-business-of-sports beat. Snyder's team told the Post in February they intended "to explore whether there was any agreement between McKenna and Steinberg to cross-promote McKenna's pieces on Snyder."

By delivering the subpoena, they showed they meant it. Among other requests, it seeks, from both Steinberg and the Post as an institution:

"All Documents evidencing or Relating to any Communication between You and McKenna pertaining to Snyder... All Documents evidencing or Relating to any Communication between You and McKenna pertaining to Snyder's wife, Tanya Snyder... All Documents evidencing or Relating to any Communications between You and McKenna pertaining to the [City Paper cover art]... All Documents evidencing or Relating to the reasons for the inclusion of links in Your Washington Post columns, blogs, or on Twitter to McKenna's City Paper articles... and All Documents evidencing or Relating to Your policies Relating to the inclusion of links in Your columns to other sources."

So, through the process of discovery, Snyder's legal team seeks to understand why a sports blogger at the Washington Post may have linked to a sportswriter at the Washington City Paper, and used Twitter to inform his Twitter followers about a sports story that happened in Washington.

This is an awfully strange way to learn a basic lesson about journalism circa the 21st century. Isn't there some new media seminar happening this week where Snyder can find out about how all of this stuff works?

Madden continues:

The media economy these days being what it is—which is to say, dying—every news organization spends a lot of time linking to, and getting links from, competitors. City Paper links to the Post frequently (including twice in this post), and vice-versa. But getting dragged into court to explain why reporters chose to link to a story—especially on Twitter, which practically exists to share links—hasn't been part of the equation. Up to now.

My favorite part of the subpoena is the fact that Snyder's team is seeking all manner of documents, including "projections" and "telegrams." What about semaphore communications, carrier pigeon relays and old-timey daguerreotypes?

I think that the Washington Post should just give Snyder's legal team the complete published history of their paper on microfiche, and make them comb through every single word until everyone is on the verge of a complete emotional breakdown.

There's little doubt that one of the few things Snyder's lawsuit has accomplished is to bring an astounding amount of attention to McKenna's original piece, long after the hubbub had died down. It's also pretty clear that Snyder's efforts amount to a strategic lawsuit against public participation (or "SLAPP" suit) -- a suit basically intended as a form of intimidation.

As we've pointed out, the District of Columbia is not a particularly amenable venue for this sort of litigation, but at this point, I doubt that Snyder's "legal team" even cares. Rather, they probably see Snyder as an anthropomorphic ATM that wont force them to care much about whether they win or lose.

In this way, they're just like every single one of Snyder's free-agency acquisitions.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Hey, America! Are you ready for some high-level presidential scandals? No, no, calm down. I have none to report. But what's being reported is that one day -- maybe someday soon! -- there will be a scandal to report, and this can be totally proven with mathematics, thanks to political scientist Brendan Nyhan:

One of the least remarked upon aspects of the Obama presidency has been the lack of scandals. Since Watergate, presidential and executive branch scandal has been an inescapable feature of the American presidency, but the current administration has not yet suffered a major scandal, which I define as a widespread elite perception of wrongdoing. What happened, and what are the odds that the administration's streak will continue?

Wait, so that time Common read some poetry at the White House didn't count as a scandal? Well, I bet a lot of people feel pretty foolish now.

Nyhan identifies two major factors as key determinants in the inevitability of a White House scandal. First: Does Obama have an opposition party that dislikes him intensely? Check. And does a "news media" that thirsts for scandal exist? By Jove, yes. And so, voila: "My research identifies presidential approval among opposition party identifiers as a key risk factor. The reason is that discontent among the opposition's base creates demand for negative news about the president, encouraging opposition legislators and members of the news media to promote allegations of misconduct."

This explains why things like Obama's maintenance of, say, Bush-era warrantless wiretapping doesn't rate as a scandal. Obama's opposition loves warrantless wiretapping. Obama's supporters love Obama. And the media doesn't care. So, even if the Electronic Frontier Foundation says that "this is change for the worse," the world spins on obliviously.

Nyhan goes on to point out other external factors, like the fact that the media keeps having to cover news like the Arab Spring and earthquakes and floods and the death of Osama bin Laden, and whatever newshole is left is taken up by things like birtherism, which is only a "scandal" if you are some sort of deranged person.

But, again, scandal is inevitable:

Going forward, though, the odds of scandal are high and rising. Obama already faces low approval among GOP identifiers and a similarly hostile climate in Congress. Back in March, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted that Republicans hadn't yet made a serious effort to back up claims that the Obama White House is "one of the most corrupt administrations." As more time passes, pressure to find evidence of misconduct is likely to build -- my data suggest that the risk of scandal increases dramatically as the period without a scandal stretches beyond two years.

Do you need to see this in chart form? Here you go!

See! Scandal is all but certain. And yet I'll still bet you ten dollars that when and if it surfaces, the story won't be broken by the White House Press Corps.

Of course, a presidential scandal isn't necessarily defined as some action that Obama himself takes that balloons into some disruptive media event and political self-destruction. He's got a whole administration full of people who could slip up at any moment and, say, funnel arms to anti-American extremists. (Ha.) All we know is that this is a pretty neat trick: Should a scandal blossom, it's now been predicted. If one fails to materialize, well, that just means there's one around the corner. The scandal could drop at any moment. Oh, ho! What's this?

Nailed him.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]