Quotes of the scandal: Anthony Weiner edition

You do the questions, I do the answers and this jackass interrupts me?--Anthony Weiner

I was the victim of a prank.--Anthony Weiner

I did not send that tweet. My system was hacked. I was pranked. It's a fairly common one. People make fun of my name all the time. When you're named 'Weiner', you kind of get that. I've asked firms to take a look at this. They're hiring an Internet security operation. We want to make sure it doesn't happen again. We're also asking for their advice about what, if any, agency should be called in on this. ... It was a hoax ... I am a victim of this ...--Anthony Weiner

Weiner's camp is now seeking legal action to investigate who hacked the account.--NBC New York

In real life, my memory is this cat had a lot more Anthony and a lot less weiner.--Jon Stewart

Weiner was framed.--The Daily Kos

And to be honest he’s never been a crusader on social issues so you can’t argue he’s been a hypocrite here, you know a morality hypocrite.--Jessica Yellin

I am well aware of Andrew Breitbart, his chasing around with microphones in my face, his distortions [of] ACORN and Shirley Sherrod ... he has in my view no credibility whatsoever. I have no belief that there's anything going on with Anthony Weiner, who also happens to be a happy, pretty lucky newlywed.--Rep. Jan Schakowsky

Meanwhile over the last couple of days, while everyone in the media had their hair on fire about this story, the talented and very smart people who live in the world of the Internets--they were trying to figure out what happened. How it could have happened. If the congressman was hacked like he said he was, if he was pranked, how would that work? How could a person do that? What would that look like? How would you even begin to get away with something like that? Here are a few of those theories.--Rachel Maddow

Congressman Weiner was stalked and set up by a Christian Infowar Militia cell based largely in Oklahoma City.--Daily Kos

It all adds up. If you have any ability to follow a moderately technical argument, only one conclusion is possible. We know that Congressman Weiner was framed, and we know the name of the framer. The framer did not hack into Weiner's account. There was no need for hacking. The framer used a much simpler, more ingenious scheme, involving a design flaw in the architecture of the application.--Joseph Cannon

... the behavior of much of the media toward Weiner is inexcusable. ... Weiner has declared himself a victim of Twitter invasion, and certainly, he’s a victim of an outrageous invasion of privacy. If someone (His wife? An old girlfriend? Himself?) took a photo of him in his skivvies, that’s his private business. And if a woman had been violated in such a way, her underwear photo sent to a Twitter follower, she would rightly be afforded sympathy, accompanied by outrage for the person who humiliated her. Weiner deserves the same consideration.--Susan Milligan

As Rep. Anthony Weiner’s alleged crotch-shot dominates the news, information on possible motives to deface Weiner’s credibility are surfacing under the radar. And as it appears, Weinergate just might be a smear campaign executed by  conservative activists looking to defend Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.--Johan Thomas

[several, several tweets]--Eric Boehlert

Andrew Brietbart’s status as the Right’s Fraudster-in-Chief is a result of what is becoming an encyclopedia of modern right-wing hoaxs that make Nixon’s Watergate burglaries look like dilettantes. Breitbart was at the center of the fake ACORN scandal, the phony Planned Parenthood videos from Lila Rose, the Shirley Sherrod smears, his sites regularly featured birther conspiracies, Breitbart was part of the gang of right-wing Republicans who created the campaign to smear Department of Education staffer Kevin Jennings and also claimed some White House conspiracy in a dust-up between a couple of participants at one of those crazy health care reform town hall meetings. This is the guy we’re all supposed to believe in what appears to be a manufactured scandal over an apparently doctored picture and without a shred of proof that Congressman Weiner was involved.--the long goodbye

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