Here’s the smoking, err, gun in all this twitter mess:
On Twitter, famous people tend to have tens of thousands to millions of followers — but they themselves follow only a fraction of that amount.
Rep. Weiner is a man of national prominence, a rising star in the Democratic Party, frequently on TV, a past and likely future candidate for mayor. He knows and is known by thousands of movers, shakers, members of the press and politicians on the city, state and national levels.
Yet, as of yesterday, he was following fewer than 200 others — and, with all those famous folks to choose from, one of the few he followed was Cordova, a 21-year-old college student who lives nearly 3,000 miles away in Bellingham,Wash.
Run that though your head for a second and at the same time remember two important facts about Twitter:
1. If two people follow each other on Twitter, they can send private messages unseen by others.
2. The difference between a direct message, seen by only the recipient, and a public tweet, seen by the world, is a single character.
The biggest problem for Weiner and his defenders on the left is not bloggers from the right. It’s the details of “#weinergate” can be understood by millions of ordinary people in 140 characters or less.
Indeed ... the questions of the day should be why were you following her, Wiener? And why were you following another high school student? If you have knowledge of a crime are you not required by law to report it?