How does a random photo on Twitter become fodder for scandal that might bring down a member of Congress -- a man who many expected to be the next mayor of New York City?
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) had it all: a beautiful wife who works for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a promising career in Congress, a great way with soundbites and a growing presence on television.
He knew how to work the camera. He wasn't afraid to take on conservative pundits, on air. He was pithy without dumbing down the issues and gave great speeches.
How did it a single tweet make it all go wrong?
The Anatomy of Weinergate
A college student near Seattle received a tweet from Weiner's account that linked to a photo of a man's bulging underwear. Weiner immediately tweeted that his account had been hacked. He then made a joke about his Tivo also being on the fritz, but his toaster remaining loyal.
That should have been the end of the story.
Public figures do get their accounts hacked. They're a target, because people want to poke inside their lives -- or do pranks. Also, Weiner had attracted a conservative activist who'd made it clear, in comments online, that he intended to go after Weiner somehow.
A hacked account and a prank made sense. The story shouldn't have hurt him.
But then Weiner started talking to the press. And talking. And talking.
In the middle of all that talking, he said something that made people doubt the whole hacking-prank narrative. He said that he couldn’t be certain that photo of a man's bulging underwear wasn't a photo of him.
Now, that struck reporters as weird. Also, Weiner didn't ask the authorities to investigate the hacking of his account, which could be a federal crime and definitely would have determined whether he had, in fact, been pranked.
So the scandal known as Weinergate was born.
It got worse when more photos emerged, including multiple shots of Weiner shirtless that he apparently sent to another woman. This killed the prank narrative entirely and turned his earlier explanations into a cover-up.
What We Can Learn
A few guidelines for public figures and PR professionals:
1) To stay out of trouble, don't ring Trouble's doorbell
If you're a married member of Congress, you shouldn't be following young single women halfway across the country, or attractive women in general.
Twitter isn't like Facebook or email. You don't have to be friends for people to see your tweets. As a public figure, it's smart follow a relatively small number of people. Don't auto-follow back.
2) Keep it simple
Weiner explained himself into a corner. If you want a story to go away, stop talking about it -- and don't open the door to doubt and confusion about basic facts.
3) Know your weaknesses
As an attractive, young and newly married member of Congress, you'd expect rumors about Weiner's former days as a bachelor. You'd also expect people to make natural puns based on his last name.
For him to say that he's not sure if the photo is of him is to admit that in the past, he's has had similar photos taken of his underwear. This is not normal. Whether or not it's the same photo that got sent on Twitter now doesn't matter as much, does it? Also, if your last name is Weiner and you're in politics, the last thing you ever want to do is take those kind of photos in the first place, or be involved in any sort of sex scandal.
4) Realize what the press and public will -- and won't -- forgive
The press and public expect public figures to make some mistakes. There are key differences between the kinds of mistakes that get forgiven and the kind that don't.
The two key questions are these: First, can you see yourself, or your neighbor, making that same mistake? Second, is the person who made this mistake a hypocrite or a sneak?
This is why politicians, pro athletes and actors who get arrested for speeding or drunk driving don't see their careers end. Is drunk driving terrible and terribly dangerous? Yes. Can average people relate to it? Yes. As long as those kind of mistakes don't happen again, the press and public can forgive them.
Doing something stupid and lying about it, though, is not OK, and neither is being a hypocrite. This is why the press goes absolutely crazy whenever a stridently anti-gay preacher gets caught with a male prostitute or a law-and-order president like Richard Nixon covers up a burglary.
The cover-up is always worse than the crime. After the admission that he couldn't be certain the photo wasn't of him, Weiner's explanations started to look like an elaborate story to cover up the fact that he wasn't pranked at all, and it wasn't long before the truth broke through the lies.