Why won't Anthony Weiner disown his scandalous Twitter pic?

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) inspires further suspicion over his cyber scandal as he continues a vague line of questioning with the press.

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

The video: Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) is working hard to defuse the scandal over a lewd photo sent from his Twitter account, but he's only giving the controversy new life. On Wednesday, Weiner told MSNBC's Luke Russert that he "can't say with certitude" that it's not his underwear-clad crotch in the photo. (See the video below.) The famously media savvy Democrat also gave an uncharacteristically awkward press conference this week, where he stated emphatically that he didn't send the picture to a 20-year-old Seattle co-ed. Asked if he had ever taken suggestive photos of himself, Weiner replied, "There are photographs of me in the world, yes." And when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked again whether Weiner was the man in the photo, the congressman would only say that "it certainly doesn't look familiar to me."

The reaction: I bet "Weiner was having some kind of cyber flirt or fling with the comely co-ed, mistakenly made a private tweet public," and now he's twisting himself in knots to avoid admitting it, says Bryan Preston at Townhall. The congressman "has behaved at every turn like a guilty man." Hold on, says Anthony De Rosa at Reuters. Maybe someone really did hack into Weiner's account, and sent this photo as a prank. Perhaps Weiner's awkwardness is just evidence that a picture of him in "some state of undress exists somewhere," and he worries it has fallen into the wrong hands. That would explain some of his verbal contortions. Watch Weiner's gossip-provoking interview: