Confidential to Anthony W. of Brooklyn -- you twit! (Our promise: no puns added)

Plus: NY-er cartoon editor Bob Mankoff has what one might hope is the last word on the subject

Can I assume that no caption is required?

by Ken

So, Anthony, it turns out that the whole brouhaha came about because you screwed up a single character -- instead of typing "D" to send your, er, business as a "direct message," you typed "@," which sent it "to" the designated recipient all right but made it viewable to one and all. Bianca Bosker has all this and much more on Huffpost Tech (The Twitter Typo That Exposed Anthony Weiner), including the reminder, which should be embarrassing all around, that the New York Times dubbed you a "technophile."

If it's any consolation, Anthony, Bianca reports: "Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com, which helps people manage their online reputations, says the accidental exposure of messages that were meant to be private happens 'millions of times a day.'"

I'm not going to ask you, "How could you be so stupid?" Casting no aspersions,it seems to come with the territory for certain power-driven personality types. (Okay, it's just possible that a couple of aspersions got cast there. After all, we're all only human.) It's bad enough that you were dopey enough to be carrying on this way online. As Bianca points out:

Privacy experts say that Weinergate underscores the importance of users understanding these social networking sites for what they are: social platforms meant to help people connect with one another, broadcast their ideas and create stores of personal information online. Services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are built for sharing, not secrets.

"Twitter was not really designed for privacy. If you do not want it public, don't put it on Twitter," said Chet Wisniewski, a security expert who writes for a blog run by Sophos, a software provider. "People shouldn't consider social networks a place to communicate private things. ... These services are designed to share, and privacy is a second consideration."

How humiliating is it that you should be hearing this from me, a card-carrying Twitterphobe? But as I say, this is almost the least of it.

Sure, the Twitter screw-up was embarrassing. For a lot of people, though, the sticking point is going to be all the lying that followed, yet another case of a self-important pol violating the Richard M. Nixon Memorial Adage about the killer being not the deed itself but the cover-up.

This morning WNYC radio political analyst Joyce Purnick was recalling how, way back when, when you first sought the Democratic nomination for your congressional district, a strange case developed of virulently racist materials being spontaneously distributed in the district smearing one of the other candidates, and when fingers started pointing at you as the responsible party, you swore just as sincerely as we saw you swearing recently that you had nothing to do with it, only you had to admit eventually that you had everything to do with it, on account of it was proved that you did. For future reference (assuming you have a future), when you're caught with your pants down, as it were, it's too late to come clean.

I know I promised not to ask, but sheesh, how could you be so stupid? Probably it has something to do with the insight of that noted philosopher of the heart, Woody Allen, who so famously explained, "The heart wants what it wants," except in your case the body parts in question seem to be located lower than the heart. Possibly too it has something to do with your impression, conveyed publicly through such feats as your showoffy dating -- prior to your marriage, of course -- that you think women think you're some hot stuff. This is probably not what the legendary producer Max Bialystock had in mind when he declared his philosophy: "If you've got it, baby, flaunt it," but it's close enough.

My gosh, when you find yourself looking up at Harry Reid perched precariously up there on the moral high ground, you know you've dug yourself one heckuva crater.


FINALLY -- OH, IF ONLY! -- NEW YORKER
CARTOON EDITOR BOB MANKOFF WEIGHS IN

Barring unforeseen developments, tomorrow I'm going to be reporting on the just-announced results of New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's search for the universal cartoon caption. You may recall that two candidates already before the public were:

"What a misunderstanding" (from digital artist Cory Arcangel)

"Christ, what an asshole!" (from Charles Lavoie)

Bob M concludes his "Cartoon Blog" report today on the universal-caption quest:

The submissions came in before the Anthony Weiner scandal broke, but the course of Weinergate can be nicely bookended by our two main contenders. When Weiner claimed his Twitter account had been hacked, you thought, “What a misunderstanding!” But by the time he tearfully confessed you were more likely to think, “Christ, what an asshole!”

Really, is there anything more that needs to be said? Except maybe this --


FINAL NOTE ON THE OUTRAGE RE. ANTHONY W. VOICED
BY REPUBLICAN PARAGONS OF MORALITY (HA-HA!)

Considering what you clowns do to destroy ordinary decency every second of every minute of every day of every year, you're kidding about Anthony W. being some sort of menace to the republic, right? Well, I suppose it's one way of diverting attention from what you've done with every accursed breath you've drawn in your polluted lives.

Assuming it's laffs you're going for, though, why not do it right and make Sen. David "The Diaper Man Cometh" Vitter your point man for this comedy crusade?

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