MICKEY KAUS: Weinergate: The Search For Meaning. “Weiner is a victim of web-driven macho partisan cocooning. That is, it was the fight-back partisanship of the Daily Kos community that gave him a group of linked-up followers he could make himself a hero of. This included dozens or more women (real or virtual) who idolized him whom he could contact in the space of a coffee break. Weiner was arrogant enough to think he could get away with recklessly exploiting his fame and status in this Web niche in part because he figured his pack would always defend him in a pinch. He was too essential to the fight. The ingenious instant wisdom of the Kos crowd would be too powerful in a clinch. He was almost right about that, though in the end it proved a delusion.”