Why do the media take these poeple seriously?

Things are at a sorry pass indeed when news media whose missions are supposed to be to inform become so enslaved to tabloid culture that they take their marching orders from guys like this (from The Smoking Gun):

JUNE 3--The Twitter user who first floated the rumor that a lewd photo scandal was brewing for Representative Anthony Weiner is not your typical conservative avenger, an investigation by The Smoking Gun has determined.

Mike Stack, a 39-year-old New Jersey resident, is known as “goatsred” in the Twitterverse, where he has helped lead a months-long assault on the New York City politician. Stack was joined at the hip in this pursuit by “patriotusa76,” who gave his name as “Dan Wolfe” and was the online avenger who happened last Friday night to discover the notorious tweet emanating from Weiner’s account.

As TSG reported yesterday, “Dan Wolfe” has conveniently evaporated in the wake of “Weinergate.” In fact, today Wolfe's entire Twitter page was deleted.

But Stack, the other Twitter Twin, remains online. An examination of his background has discovered:

* Stack, who aggressively pushed the story about Weiner’s underpants shot, has worked as a moderator on a pornography web site, and been a regular commenter on several other X-rated sites. Stack describes himself as a “Pervert” on one site, where his avatar, captioned “Antichrist,” is a drawing of President Barack Obama as Jesus Christ.

* New Jersey court records show that Stack was convicted of drunk driving in February 2008. He was previously arrested for domestic assault in July 2004 following a drunken fight that left his girlfriend with bruises on her arm (that case, though, ended with a dismissal in April 2005). Stack is pictured above in a mug shot taken by the Readington Township Police Department following his 2004 collar.

* Stack has twice declared bankruptcy during the past 14 years. His most recent Chapter 7 case ended in July 2008, around the time Stack lost his Hunterdon County home to foreclosure. At the time of that filing, Stack reported working as a warehouseman for Johnson & Johnson.

* The Internal Revenue Service last year filed a $5907 federal tax lien against Stack.

“The past is the past,” Stack said in an interview today. Describing himself as a “private person,” he added, “there’s no reason my records need to be public.”

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.

While Stack’s rap sheet and financial calamities may be of interest to “Weinergate” followers, his affiliation with porn sites might raise the eyebrows of the conservative coterie with which he is affiliated.

Probably not. We already know that hypocrisy is the currency of Republican and conservative politics. How else to explain the presence of potential GOP candidates at a conclave put together by a so-called "Christian leader" who, as Dennis G. points out, was exposed in the Jack Abramoff probe as "a money grubbing, hypocrite who had no problem scamming Christians into support gambling, human trafficking, sex slavery and forced abortions just to make a fast buck." John Edwards deserves everything that can be thrown at him for the same kind of hypocrisy that we usually see among Republicans -- passing himself off as a devoted husband to political supporters while fucking a grifter on the side. But it's becoming ever more clear with every scam that the Breitbart/O'Keefe axis comes up with, or that guys like Mike Stack (not to be confused with Mike Stark, whose modus operandi is only to make Rush Limbaugh look stupid on Limbaugh's own radio show) come up with, that conservatives will do anything...anything...and destroy anyone who gets in their way.

And by the way, what the hell are we growing in New Jersey, that both this guy Stack AND James O'Keefe were raised here?