#Weinergate: Patriot Games
[Guest Post by Lee Stranahan]
I’m loath to link to this piece in The Smoking Gun because it’s ‘personal destruction’ brought to a new low. It brings up a lot of stuff that’s totally irrelevant to the Weinergate story about someone who really hasn’t put themselves into the public eye about this story. It’s so over the top and clearly off-topic that it s fair I think to ask if there is a political motivation for going after him?
But – I link to it because it tells a story that illustrates why I called Patriot a liar and manipulator.
Some people have wondered about a tweet sent out a few weeks ago that seems to have predicted the photo scandal. The tweet was not sent by Patriot aka Dan Wolfe – except, it really was. Patriot is the one who claims to have had the info but he didn’t send it out himself.
Stack also contended that while he sent out the May 5 tweet first hinting that a “big time” Congressman was about to be ensnared in a sex scandal, he claimed that Wolfe actually provided him that information. Wolfe, Stack said, told him that he had heard the rumor from a source who worked for a well-known conservative web site.
After Stack sent out the initial tweet, Wolfe quickly ran with the rumor, attributing it–“via@goatsred”–to his online buddy. In retweets, Wolfe immediately attached Weiner’s name to the rumor, wondering “@RepWeiner are you this Congressman?” Stack did not have an explanation as to why Wolfe sought to launder the rumor through him. He also vehemently denied that he was Wolfe.
To review: Patriot got Mike to tweet something, which Mike did. Patriot retweeted it – in order to make it appear as though he was merely retweeting something somebody else had said. Anyone looking at the record would attribute the origin of the rumor to Mike, not Patriot.
Mike is a victim of Patriot – a fake internet persona, that nobody seems to have ever talked to or been able to track down any evidence about. Patriot / Dan Wolfe isn’t real.
There was a time that I considered the possibility that Mike WAS Patriot. Now, I know with 100% certainty that that is not the case.
Mike is a real person. That’s clear from the piece and I talked to him several times on the phone. He is flesh and blood – I might not agree with his politics or his baseball rooting (he’s a Yankees fan, I’m BoSox) but I’d have a beer with the guy. He strikes me as very sincere.
The fake Dan Wolfe abused the trust of the real Mike Stack – who is now splashed on the pages of The Smoking Gun for no good reason.
The people defending ‘Dan Wolfe’ need to stop and seriously reconsider why they are defending someone who isn’t even honest about who they are. The ‘Dan Wolfe’ they are defending engaged in a long vendetta against Rep. Weiner and wasn’t even honest with with his ALLIES in that endeavor about who they were.
And as soon as the shit hit the fan, Patriot vanished to leave other people holding the bag. Defend THAT.
– Lee Stranahan
UPDATE BY PATTERICO: As I say in a post below, I’m personally convinced Wolfe is a man, based on the FilmLadd interview, in which Wolfe comes across as a crotchety, annoying, stubborn, not very bright, no-you-listen-to-ME type of older white male. He could probably have a great career on talk radio if he has an annoying voice, as he reminds me very much of a certain radio host. If he is a woman or some kind of corporate conglomerate then she/they are a hell of a great actor(s).
Lee’s post, as many of his posts lately, seems to be based on undisclosed facts. And maybe it is. If so, I think he should be more clear about that point. Until I hear something new, my assumption is that Dan Wolfe, with his LMAOs and LOLs and other irritating Internet tics, is an obsessive and dim-witted distraction.
UPDATE x2: Lee has appeared in comments and sounds as confident as ever. Obviously he’s got something.
It will be interesting to see what that is.
UPDATE x3: Here is Lee’s comment:
I’m going to get credit from people when it turns out my concerns about Patriot are well founded, correct?
Just asking — I’ll take the slings and arrows now as long some of you are going to promise to be big enough to admit you were wrong.
You know what? I think I’m going to stop issuing opinions about this and let it all play out. It’s clear from his comment that Lee thinks he has something. Let’s see what that is and give him some credit.
New theory – dan works in the internet porn also.
Weiner became good customer sent pic to some other than Girl in Seattle originally – dan intercepted the pass – then plotted the worst sort of You got punk’d method he could think of.
interesting that Lee’s theory that Dan is a girl still works with this.
papertiger (e55ba0) — 6/4/2011 @ 7:25 amNew theory: Anthony Weiner sent a picture of his dick to a college girl on Twitter.
MayBee (081489) — 6/4/2011 @ 7:32 amDidn’t Tommy Christopher’s high school girls claim to tell patriot76 that they had stuff on Weiner?
MayBee (081489) — 6/4/2011 @ 7:33 amWhy can’t we consider that the source of the rumor?
@MayBee
the college girl has to be a hoochie for the Occam theory to work.
papertiger (e55ba0) — 6/4/2011 @ 7:49 amotherwise you have Rep. Weiner using his dick pic lick a trawling net to pick up girls.
And that doesn’t sound right. That’s something a regular horny guy would not do, much less a congressman.
paper — there are plenty of other scenarios that make sense
Lee Stranahan (708cc3) — 6/4/2011 @ 7:51 amYes Lee.
papertiger (e55ba0) — 6/4/2011 @ 7:58 amBut I’m liking the “patriot76 is a girl” theory better, after what {s}he did to Mike Stack.
Stack also contended that while he sent out the May 5 tweet first hinting that a “big time” Congressman was about to be ensnared in a sex scandal, he claimed that Wolfe actually provided him that information
any proof of this claim? how did Wolfe provide this? tweet? DM?
windansea (569f57) — 6/4/2011 @ 8:10 amSo someone tweeted to someone else who retweeted that a Congressman was going to be entangled in a “sex” scandal and up pops photos claimed to be Weiner’s weiner and the scandel is the tweets/retweets?
Gee, I thought the scandal was that a sitting Congressman has a photo of his package tweeted all across the nation, claims his FB was hacked, later changes that to his Twitter account was pranked, won’t deny it’s his package or that he has never taken pictures of his package and put them on his Twitter account for someone to see.
Not to mention that Lee is loath to give us that information but, what the hell, is going to do it anyway.
Focus people: it’s not important who tweeted what to whom, what’s important is a) was that photo really of Anthony Weiner’s package and b) why did he put it out there to be hacked in the first place?
retire05 (9e2f08) — 6/4/2011 @ 8:24 amIt would be interesting to speculate on the high school girls who talked about Weiner acting inappropriately on Twitter. Were they lying then or are they lying now?
Evidence seems to point lying now.
Either that, or out of the blue a girl thought she could get attention by saying Weiner was too sexual in his DMs. And then, coincidentally, Weiner posted a sexual picture on Twitter.
Why doesn’t this work: some girls tattled on Weiner’s twitter behavior. Stark and Patriot tweeted about that, without pointing at the girls. A few weeks later, Weiner slipped up and publicly tweeted his thingie. The girls told their parents that Weiner had never! acted like that with them, and “admitted” lying to Patriot.
MayBee (081489) — 6/4/2011 @ 8:37 amIdiots.
Weiner sent the tweet and got caught.
End of story.
East Coast Chris (c31a9b) — 6/4/2011 @ 8:39 amWhat East Coast Chris says. And MayBee. And retire05. And it appears Lee is having a hard time accepting that a rabidly liberal Democrat Congressman actually did this. If he can’t admit the picture isn’t him and won’t report it to authorities, it speaks volumes about who did it. We know he isn’t going to resign; it’s not the Democrat way.
PatAZ (f23d3e) — 6/4/2011 @ 9:21 amWith the two way sexting that has become almost de rigueur- and goes on all the time via teen age cellphone cameras and tweets – it’s way more likely that the girls were bragging about it and were exchanging photos than that they were shocked by it. A married congressman’s package would be a much cooler “get” for a giggly girl than a photo of the pimply kid in chemistry class’ dick.
Weiner’s evasive song and dance with the media to occupy them as he gives his hired guns time to scrub files, destroy evidence, and track down and pay off/threaten people is obvious. The parents’ defensive and overly polished published statement yesterday is only one of the products, but a tangible and open one, of Weiner’s damage control activities. I’ll wager the creepy congressman’s been trolling for a while and there is a whole lot to cover up.
The loud, undisciplined and often juvenile antics (look at meee!) that we’ve seen in Weiner’s politics and interviews now seem to be just another manifestation of his basically purile personality that he is obviously unable to control.
elissa (35276c) — 6/4/2011 @ 9:36 am3 words : Get a life.
Wienerdude is guilty
Gerry (13e51b) — 6/4/2011 @ 9:44 amAll the rest is BS
I have two teenage girls who would be mortified if someone like AW tried to communicate with them…and I think every single friend of theirs would feel the same revulsion…just wondering who these girls are, is all…I think it’s obvious there’s a lot more going on here than just Weiner’s picture being tweeted…
Ellen (a13e9f) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:00 amSmoking Gun is owned by the same obamawhores what own CNN
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:02 amUm what about the theory…”Patriot” is @repweiner’s wife…found what he was doing on his phone and exacted her own measure of justice? Fear a woman scorned!
Pamela (c7e602) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:03 amLee,
Respectfully, Mike is not “the victim of Patriot76”, but of whatever smear machine that managed to get all of his personal information and send it to “The Smoking Gun”. I suspect the “private investigators” Weiner hired passed it on; who dug it up? I can’t be sure…
It feels disturbingly Clintonesque, in the same manner that Lewinsky became a stalker, etc, and Ken Starr a villain.
In short, they hope to smear any involved by association; the very thing we’re supposed to studiosly avoid when the ideological roles are reversed.
My Regards
Bob Reed (5f2db5) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:13 ammet a girl on tweeter i guess you could say she was a sex fiend
met her in the tweeter lobby and sent her photos of my turgid ween
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:13 amHappy,
They have Orchid decorated Cupcakes with Anise and Nutmeg over Moose more like a Lemon Ganache
In other words – eh no more poetry and I’ll send you a box
EricPWJohnson (9edf59) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:28 amthat was from a prince song Mr. Johnson
the cupcakes sound magnificent but me I gotta express!
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:31 amFor…the…last….time:
Weiner sent the tweet and got caught.
Patriot is nothing but a fanatical conservative fiendishly stalking Weiner’s tweets, waiting to pounce when he made a mistake. All of this idiotic speculation is pointless. There’s no proof Patriot is anyone but whom he says he is. Everything he’s said so far has checked out.
Stop it. Stop it now. Weiner got caught tweeting a girl. That’s it folks. Put the magnifying glasses down. Case closed.
East Coast Chris (c31a9b) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:48 amLee, that is kind of “Bill Burkett” and it has always bothered me.
I do think, however, the tweet-spotting appearance/deletion interval given is perfectly plausible.
The one point the persona of Dan Wolfe is necessarily correct to emphasize, however, is that a truly *wronged* Weiner would call the cops, at least at this point, to establish how the picture came to appear in his twitter stream.
SarahW (af7312) — 6/4/2011 @ 10:53 amthank you. for more insight on why so much of dan’s anger was directed at stranahan, please read my comment at filmladd.
razor419 (9f0b7d) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:09 amhttp://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2011/06/sword-of-al-qae.html
ian cormac (72470d) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:13 amI don’t think you understand. No one is defending him.
It’s just that no one CARES about him.
You’re obsessing over a guy who obsessed over Weiner. This is nothing more than a distraction. Hoping that there is more to the story will not make it so.
Are we going to go after every anonymous internet troll from now on and de-mask them? How is this even a little bit relevant?
Jewels (c7b6c5) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:14 am“the rumor” was only a rumor in retrospect… way after Weiner sent his penis photo out
no one would have known about “the rumor” their whole lives if Anthony hadn’t taken a glamor shot of his wingle wangle and sent it out on twitter
for the ladies
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:26 amUPDATE BY PATTERICO: As I say in a post below, I’m personally convinced Wolfe is a man, based on the FilmLadd interview, in which Wolfe comes across as a crotchety, annoying, stubborn, not very bright, no-you-listen-to-ME type of older white male. He could probably have a great career on talk radio if he has an annoying voice, as he reminds me very much of a certain radio host. If he is a woman or some kind of corporate conglomerate then she/they are a hell of a great actor(s).
Lee’s post, as many of his posts lately, seems to be based on undisclosed facts. And maybe it is. If so, I think he should be more clear about that point. Until I hear something new, my assumption is that Dan Wolfe, with his LMAOs and LOLs and other irritating Internet tics, is an obsessive and dim-witted distraction.
Patterico (135ea8) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:30 amI’m going to get credit from people when it turns out my concerns about Patriot are well founded, correct?
Just asking — I’ll take the slings and arrows now as long some of you are going to promise to be big enough to admit you were wrong.
Lee Stranahan (708cc3) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:37 amWhy are you BlAMING someone besides Weiner!
Even the MEDIA knows Weiner did it!
Everyone should be calling for an Investigation to find out the truth!
Juan (791078) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:39 amcharacter will out… and as we’ve gotten better acquainted with Mr. patriot he’s become an increasingly recognizable figure I think to many of us
It’s like how I think everybody thought Obama was sort of a serious person on some level, but as we got to know him better we learned he was just a trashy dirty socialist whore what likes to fritter away his time on golf and obscure hobbies like bombing Libya and making electric cars
And same with Anthony Weiner. He’d seemed an ambitious and intelligent partisan, but now as we’ve gotten to know him more better it’s clear he’s just a frat boy what likes to get online and show people his penis.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:40 amNo, I never thought either of them, were anything like that, Obama was more concerning, because of
ian cormac (72470d) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:42 amthe noxious nature of his views.
oh. Well maybe it’s just a me thing.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:43 amLEe – if you demonstrate that patriotperson hacked the weinertweeter and posted the crotch shots, I will be happy to apologize for holding my opinion that patriotperson is irrelevant to the overall story.
JD (306f5d) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:43 amAnd yet, you did anyway. How brave of you.
opal (1589c3) — 6/4/2011 @ 11:58 amWaitaminnit — Anthony Weiner hires a private investigation agency to look into Weinergate and tell him whether he did it. But he won’t call the FBI or the police even though he claims that he, a Congressman, was impersonated and had his accounts compromised. Ho-kay.
Now, a person who seems to be involved in exposing the information about Weiner’s activities has the details of his life splashed on the Web in thesmokinggun.com in an unsigned article. Ya think that Weiner’s private investigation agency might, just might have had something to do with that?
Hey, remember how the only people who said Bill Clinton had an eye for the wimminz were “nuts and sluts”?
Lee, have either Stack or Wolfe done anything illegal? Do their methods excuse or negate anything that Anthony Weiner has done?
Oh, and if Wolfe has done something illegal, such as hacking Weiner’s accounts, shouldn’t that crime be investigated? Can’t his guilt or innocence be established through an investigation by the police or the FBI, with subpoenas to Weiner’s ISP?
Murgatroyd (fd5fcd) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:02 pmUPDATE x2: Lee has appeared in comments and sounds as confident as ever. Obviously he’s got something.
It will be interesting to see what that is.
Patterico (135ea8) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:04 pmHe could probably have a great career on talk radio if he has an annoying voice, as he reminds me very much of a certain radio host.
Oh, just say the name we’re all thinking of.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (f3a2a3) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:12 pmDoes anyone know Dan Wolfe’s Free Republic nom de guerre?
It would be interesting to follow the evolution of his obsession.
opal (1589c3) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:13 pmClinton never tweeted photos of his penis though but in his defense that’s probably just cause it’s crooked and herpetic
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:14 pmAnd of course it’s Weiner’s wiener photo. Even the left defected after he made his “certitude” boner.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (f3a2a3) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:16 pmGood one, hf!
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (f3a2a3) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:17 pmClinton got elected twice happyfeet.
That’s all you really need to know about his penis.
opal (1589c3) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:18 pmwould it were
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:20 pmUPDATE x3: Here is Lee’s comment:
You know what? I think I’m going to stop issuing opinions about this and let it all play out. It’s clear from his comment that Lee thinks he has something. Let’s see what that is and give him some credit.
Patterico (135ea8) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:24 pmBut how often did Clinton’s penis have elections?
Murgatroyd (fd5fcd) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:24 pmLee@28–
At the end of a long (sorry!) post on one of the other Weiner threads this morning I asked this question of Lee:
“What about you, Lee? Do you believe Weiner is an innocent? Are you in possession of facts that show he is innocent? Or do you believe that is him in his gray undies out on the internet?”
I have not seen an answer. I understand Lee may not have seen it, or that for some reason he may prefer not to answer directly. But just as a follow up– Lee, what say you?
elissa (35276c) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:31 pmAs recently as 2008. Rush Limbaugh was obsessed with where Big Dog’s penis had been.
As I recall, it was an officially named operation during the Democratic primaries.
opal (1589c3) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:42 pmI think we can all agree that Clinton’s penis has had many adventures
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:45 pmOf course happyfeet. Hence all the conservative men who love to role play as Sarah Palin.
opal (1589c3) — 6/4/2011 @ 12:59 pmthat’s a non sequitur I think
You know sometimes Mitt Romney doesn’t even wear a tie! That’s cause he’s just a regular joe like just like us.
Unless you wear a tie then he’s just like you too he just happens to not be wearing a tie at the moment.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 6/4/2011 @ 1:05 pmelissa,
I believe Lee has been quite clear that he believes Weiner is guilty . . . of something. The question is what.
Try reading my latest post for an explanation of why this could possibly matter.
Patterico (135ea8) — 6/4/2011 @ 1:21 pmDon’t get me started on ties.
There is a Windsor knot, and a Half-Windsor knot.
Everything else is European-style socialism.
opal (1589c3) — 6/4/2011 @ 1:23 pmRACIST!!!
/Chrissy Weiner
DohBiden (15aa57) — 6/4/2011 @ 1:46 pmOpal is kind of a douchenozzle.
JD (318f81) — 6/4/2011 @ 1:49 pm