Weinergate: 3 Things Rep. Weiner Should Never Say Again

Why can’t he just argue that someone found a perfectly innocent crotch-shot on his hard drive, manipulated it to make the bulge bigger, and tweeted it to make him an international sex symbol/ruin him?

Since someone — not Rep. Anthony Weiner, he insists — sent a groin shot to one of his followers on Twitter, he's made a series of remarks that the eighth-grader in all of us can't let slide.

He should stop. The obfuscations, jokes, and hopefully accidental double-entendres fuel a story already powered by legitimate questions about whether he's a creep, our fears of online trickery, and — sorry — the fact that it's about a Weiner's wiener.

Also read: Jon Stewart Tells Pal Anthony Weiner: "Just Tell the Truth" (Video)

Here are three statements from the past week that Weiner would be wise not to repeat:

1. "Am I allowed to say, 'I wish'?" — His joke response when asked by Rachel Maddow if the offending buldge was his.

2. “You did not just introduce that by saying ‘the long and short of it,’ did you?" — Weiner in an interview with NY1's "Inside City Hall."

3. "This thing popped up." — Weiner's description of the photo appearing on Twitter.

He might also want to avoid any use of the word "manipulated" in discussions of photographed genitalia. (From the Maddow interview: "Stuff gets manipulated, stuff gets — you know, you can change a photograph, you can manipulate a photograph, you can doctor a photograph.") First, you really only hear the words "manipulated" and "penis" together in molestation cases. Not a good pairing.

Second: Is he seriously contending that someone might have taken a shot of his groin in pants, made those pants look like underwear, and otherwise altered the shot, perhaps to make the bulge bigger? (He did say "I wish" when asked if it was his.) Wouldn't it be easier to just sub in someone else's crotch?

Also: Why would someone trying to embarrass him give him a larger member in the process?

Also read: Rep. Weiner: My Name Made Me a Target

Weiner's best line of defense may be his suggestion that he was the victim of an online prank because of his name. It touches a sympathetic nerve in anyone stung by schoolyard taunting. And it makes sense.

The New York Democrat gets less sympathy for his decision to hire outside investigators — but not call law enforcement — to determine who sent the image and whether the crotch in question is his. As his longtime friend Jon Stewart put it:

"I'm not a big-city detective, but why don't you just check inside your pants? … Seriously, an investigation? Your penis didn't rob the Bellagio."

One problem: If it is Weiner in the photo, dodging questions might be his best bet.

Sure, he could always argue that he or someone else might have snapped a completely innocent picture of his groin, perhaps to show a distant aunt how much he liked the new underwear she sent him for his birthday. Some vicious hacker might have taken that harmless picture from his hard drive, manipulated it to make him better endowed, and sent it out online, in a calculated bid to make him an international sex symbol/ruin him. 

But try explaining that one.

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