Let’s talk a spell about someone we haven’t discussed in the #Weinerergate story for quite some time – Anthony Weiner.
You remember him, right? Used to be Congressman. Very liberal. Went to the gym a lot. This guy.
When this story first broke on Memorial Day weekend, Congressman Weiner claimed that his Twitter account was hacked. A lot of people – especially people on the political right - were very skeptical of this claim. In fact, many went so far as to actually make conjectures that Weiner had not, in fact, been hacked.
Do you remember one of the major reasons that people were so skeptical of the congressman’s claim that his Twitter account was hacked?
People didn’t believe Weiner because he didn’t call for an investigation into his Twitter account being taken over.
Remember that? Try to remember that suspicion you felt when you heard that the Congressman wasn’t investigating why someone had apparently taken over his Twitter account. Hold it in your mind for a moment; you’ll need it.
Flash forward to this week.
We have a woman in Boston named Jenny George who says that she was dragged into this strange Weinergate story by a very bizarre set of circumstances. It’s no exaggeration to say that her life has been turned upside down. She claimed to several people, including the Boston Police Department, that she has received multiple death threats. Some irresponsible journalists have even gone so far as to suggest she has a much greater involvement in this story she has admitted. (Okay, that last part is just me, really.) Even well-known conservative writer Dan Wolfe aka @PatriotUSA76 has sprung to Ms. George’s defense.
So what happened that plunged this poor innocent damsel into this Kafkaesque / Philip K. Dickian / Biz Stonian nightmare?
She’s claiming that her Twitter account was taken over. Hacked, if you will.
Now let me ask you to pull out that small bit of credulity that I ask you to set aside earlier; that credulity that you had when you learned that Anthony Weiner wasn’t launching an investigation. Can you spare a wee bit of that credulity for Ms. George’s story?
There’s actually however a reason to be much MORE credulous at Ms. George’s claims — we have a suspect. Nay, not just a person of interest in the dastardly crime of having taken over Ms. George’s Twitter account. We know for absolute fact who did it.
Nikki Reid is a person who took over Jenny George’s Twitter account.
So, why isn’t Ms. George defending her good name and asking questions of Nikki Reed’s father, John Reid…a man who has been answering questions at Patterico.com all week?
In fact, why isn’t she making angry accusations and calling in the police to find the person who took over for account and embroiled her in this entire saga. Where is the cyber finger-pointing at John Reid; a person who claims to be real, with a real daughter who really took over the Twitter account that Jenny George has told multiple people (myself included) that she started?
But this question isn’t really for Ms. George.
The question is for you.
Why is Ms. George being given a pass that Congressman Weiner was not?
He wasn’t just “answering questions”, but providing documents. DM’s.
If you were to believe her story, (stopped using account years ago, innocent, clueless, received threats, called Lee & visited BPD in panic) and were a friend of hers, would you recommend she engage in these discussions and defend herself like other players have? Or would you have her lay low and have the police handle it?
You’re begging the question — why believe her story?
Did you believe Weiner’s story? Did you make a similar excuse for him?
Nope. Hacking (not to mention identity theft, computer fraud, libel) are all crimes. I know my insurance company wouldn’t just take my word for it if I said that my house was robbed. They would want a police report. They would want an investigation. We shouldn’t cut blank checks of trust, especially when those involved have consistently lied.
But lee, seriously, get a grip on your followers. Allowing them to go around threatening innocent little “minding-my-own-business” girls, making them scared and shit… You should be ashamed. /Sarc
No one believes your caller told the truth. The question is what parts of her story are lies.
Everything, including the caller’s purported identity, is open for question.
Not when the police 1) took a statement from her and 2) went to her apartment after that statement.
After that, it’s perfectly reasonable to say this is Jenny George — the same one who phoned me
Lee in that statement to the police did she verify that she was the one that called you? That’s what everyone is looking for conformation on. It’s incredibly specific but in the world of sock puppet on top of sock puppet everyone is questioning everything at this point.
While I have asked questions of “John Reid”, I have not received a reply. Nor am I less than skeptical.
The only reason I might even halfway believe Ms. George is that she did, evidently, go to the police. This is not to say that I believe her, merely that she has a half-way credible.
My difficulty in all this is (hello?) none of it makes the slightest sense.