Underage #Weinergate: The Silence of The Press II.

Call it The Silence of The Press, Part II.

Patterico has published a trilogy of stories - here, here and here - about the connection between Rep. Anthony Weiner and underage girls. To be sure, Patterico’s pieces broke some new ground but there’s a dirty little open secret – much of what Patterico published has been available to anyone who cared to look for the past two weeks since the story broke but has remained almost completely out of the press.

Patterico is to be commended for stepping into a dark section of #Weinergate where few have been brave enough to tread but of course, it’s not the first time the press has let down the public on #Weinergate.

The MSM was largely silent about Rep. Weiner’s immediately fishy story about being ‘hacked’ when it was first reported on Memorial Day weekend. CNN’s Howard Kurtz famously claimed it seemed ‘fake’ and for the most part, the press dutifully repeated the spin of Rep. Weiner and his cover-up cohorts until such time as Rep. Weiner resorting to calling a CNN producer a jackass. When he couldn’t even bunt the daintiest of softballs from sycophantic non-reporter Rachel Maddow, it started to look really really bad for Weiner…but even then, he maintained the illusion that his problems were caused by a right wing smear machine engineered by Andrew Breitbart. It took the slow release of photos to dislodge a semblance of truth from the Congressman.

Until the moment that Weiner shuffled in front of podium with a confession, crocodile tears and more lies (3 women in the last year? Pshaw!) the evidence against him as ALL ‘circumstantial’. Nothing proved conclusively, beyond a shadow of the doubt, in total certainty that Weiner had accidently tweeted his undies to a college student on the internet until the words came out of his mouth.

Now we know the Rep. Weiner (D – NY) is a liar. We know that he won’t admit things until he literally has no other option. And we know that he had a habit of talking to a number of women who admired him politically and then using that admiration to his own sexual advantage.

So why is the press now ignoring the ‘underage girl’ angle of the #Weinergate story that has had MORE proof behind it then the Tweet Seen ‘Round The World that went to Seattle co-ed Gennete Cordova?

This bears repeating, so I’ll repeat it.

There has been more clear, explicit, inexplicable and publicly available information about an inappropriate online relationship between Rep. Anthony Weiner and the girl Patterico calls “Ethel” then there has been about ANY other person – yet the press hasn’t even asked pertinent questions about. Most of this info was available during the ENTIRE story. Reporters like Tommy Christopher certainly know all about it, but failed to even mention it once in his reporting.

Supposedly, this was done in the name of ‘protecting’ the high school students involved. But how is this protecting them? We know by his admission that Rep. Weiner was a predator who went after liberal political groupies. These girls fit the pattern. More investigation is not only called for but seems mandatory…and this time, the press can’t just accept excuses from the girl’s parents on faith. We simply know too much about Weiner now to do that.

And – again, can’t be said enough – there’s no lack of evidence of something weird about Weiner following these girls. There’s clear evidence that he followed them. There’s clear evidence that these underage girls knew about each other. There’s clear evidence that they knew about other women that Weiner had online relationships with.

Hopefully, the press will get their act together on this story soon but even if they do, it’s only because they have something in common with Anthony Weiner: they don’t act until the blogosphere forces them to act.