WeinerPantsGate: End Of Story?

Congressman Anthony Weiner has finally said unambiguously that he did NOT send that waist-down picture of someone in gray underwear displaying the outline of his long-form man-certificate.

End of story? I hope not.

He says he’s not sure if the picture was of him or not, which is a little weird, but hey — he had a life before we was married, maybe someone wanted a souvenir. As long as HE didn’t SEND that picture, he did nothing wrong.

But that can’t be the end of the story. Because if HE did nothing wrong, that means the person who made it LOOK like he sent the picture did something VERY wrong. And yet the congressman told CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes – no big deal. It was just “mischief” — a “prank” — not worth a federal investigation.

Maybe not. But to dismiss it as being about “posting a silly picture?”

No! This is about posting that picture under someone else’s name. This is about the rules of the game – the rules of this social networking game that we are all immersed in.

We have given up a lot of privacy in the last few years, but there is one place where I think most of us would draw the line, and where Congressman Weiner should too:

You should not see YOUR name attached publicly to something YOU didn’t do.

Someone who makes it look like you sent a lewd photograph that you DIDN’T SEND … should pay a price for that.

It’s not a prank. A prank is when someone finally steps forward and says – hey, it was me, just kidding! No – this is cybercancer. It can kill a career. It’s happened to people.

Here’s my question for Congressman Weiner – Congressman, if you’re telling the truth, it means that this so-called prankster tried to make you look like a pervert. Are you really OK with that?