Advice on Lying.

To quote one of the many fine observations from the philosophical masterpiece Clerks 2, "I'm disgusted and repulsed and... and I can't look away."

Weiner offered his porn star ...what's the word..."twitter buddy"?...some advice on lying, which, oddly, didn't include "never put it in writing":

On June 2, Weiner emailed Lee, "Do you need to talk to a professional PR type person to give u advice? I can have someone on my team call. [Yeah, my team is doing great. Ugh]."


It's unclear if Weiner's PR team is from his Congressional staff. If so, Weiner could run afoul of House Ethics Rules as well as the law. Weiner put on a full court press, urging Lee to lie about their relationship. On June 1, he emailed her: "The key is to have a short, thought out statement that tackles the top line questions and then refer people back to it. Have a couple of iterations of: 'This is silly. Like so many others, I follow Rep. Weiner on Twitter. I don't know him and have never met him. He briefly followed me and sent me a dm saying thank you for the follow. That's it.'"

Weiner suggested a nice touch -- some good ol' Southern charm: "And then maybe insert some y'alls in there."

Weiner obviously followed his own advice, which stone-walled questions and made him look ever so guilty.

It is totally weird that he would have put this in writing as opposed to making a phone call.

Also, I've learned from this experience that, by golly, people do conspire to lie.  I orginally bought Genette Cordova's statement that she didn't know Weiner because it seemed so unlikely that she would voluntarily lie for Weiner in such an extended manner.  Well, it turns out that she did:

Mr. Weiner, at his news conference on Monday, said he had sent Ms. Cordova the underwear photo “as part of a joke.” But Ms. Cordova said the image was not in keeping with the tenor of their previous interactions.


“I still didn’t get the joke part of it,” she said.

Compare that with her June 2, 2011 statement:

There have never been any inappropriate exchanges between Anthony Weiner and myself, including the tweet/picture in question, which had apparently been deleted before it reached me. I cannot answer the questions that I do not have the answers to. I am not sure whether or not this letter will alleviate any future harassment. I also do not have a clear understanding as to how or why exactly I am involved in this fiasco.

It seems a fair assumption that Weiner's advice and/or public relations team played some role in the drafting of Ms. Cordova's statement.

This leaves open the question of why Cordova would make herself complicit in such manipulation.  Out of charity we can chalk it up to her age and to the Congressman's apparent position of power and influene, which is ultimately one reason that this is not a "private matter."