There are some days where you just can't win. Anthony Weiner has been having that day, with some rare exceptions, for the past two years.
Tuesday night brought one hell of a turn to Weiner's car-crash-on-repeat last few weeks of campaigning. The Tuesday day wasn't too great either, and it provides some helpful background here. On Tuesday morning, The New York Daily News ran a cover story by former Weiner mayoral campaign intern Olivia Nuzzi that served as an embarrassing expose. It revealed, by name, one staffer who was only "here because of Huma" because of her ties to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Nuzzi also writes that "there were a lot of short resumes around the office."
Weiner's campaign was obviously not too pleased. And here is where things went silly.
In a pretty massive scoop, Talking Points Memo's Hunter Walker wound up on the receiving end of a mind-blowing rant from Weiner's communications director, Barbara Morgan, about Nuzzi. Following The New York Times' lead, we won't be printing most of what she said. But this is too good not to cover up with asterisks and let your mind connect the dots:
F*****g slutbag. Nice f*****g glamour shot on the cover of the Daily News. Man, see if you ever get a job in this town again.
As Patrick Ruffini pointed out last night, the term "slutbag" has gone absolutely bonkers on Twitter since the story was released around 9 p.m.
When Business Insider e-mailed Morgan last night to ask if she intended her comments to be on the record, she responded with "NO NO NO NO NO." Which is a lot of nos. But TPM maintains the conversation was on the record, and that there was never any agreement that it not be so. And, really, even if it was off the record, that is still some seriously weird stuff to say to a reporter.
Morgan has issued a full apology for the remarks and says that she has personally apologized to Nuzzi.
In any event, what we're left with now is another jaw-dropping mess for the Weiner campaign to deal with, all while living with bottoming out poll numbers. It also leaves us with the term "slutbag." Which in German translates to "sluttaschen" (a ten-gallon hat tip to New York Times' Jacob Harris for that).
And lastly, it leaves us with the strong conviction that New York City mayoral campaigns are far more fun than they should be.
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