Wieners gone wild ... Montana style

Here on the northern border of the heartland, it's hard to imagine having a U.S. congressman embroiled in a Weiner-esque social media scandal.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., who just announced his resignation, started the month claiming that he can't say "with certitude" whether or not a lewd below-the-belt photograph, viewed now by millions on the Internet, depicted his underwear-clad erector set. He did know for certain that he didn't tweet the picture to a 21-year-old female college student in Seattle, Wash.

For a week, Weiner lamely insisted that his Twitter account had been hacked ... right up until leaks of other explicit photos and inappropriate conversations of a sexual nature surfaced. Then he lamely apologized for lying and took time off from his day job at the Pentagon, as he (also lamely) declared, to seek treatment for an undisclosed disorder at an undisclosed location.

Since his wife is back in town, I'd guess the location is A) on a beach somewhere on the opposite side of the world where he's wisely foregoing technology and flashing his nether regions to women in person on the beach; B) at his in-law's home where he's getting the what-for-and-then-some from his pregnant wife and her familial constituents; or C) at Twitter Account Management Summer Camp taking an Internet Survivalist refresher course, and hiking in the Adirondacks.

It's not like scandals of this nature can't happen in Montana, a state known to the coastal urbanites as fly-over country, but let's take an honest look at our congressmen.

Sen. Max Baucus, whose birth almost predates electricity, was first elected to the U.S. Senate without the aid or distraction of social media. In fact, Al Gore hadn't even invented the Internet yet in the days of Baucus' first campaign. Baucus met his other woman the old-fashinoned way: in person. No school like the old school.

Rep. Denny Rehberg's history says that he is so technology challenged he can't read a GPS map on a boat or operate a low-tech flashlight to spot the occasional water obstacle, such as a fast-approaching, steep and rock-strewn shoreline. He apparently can't even help himself and his drinking buddies with his cellphone to call for a designated driver.

I imagine Sen. Jon Tester won't touch any technology outside of the control tower in one of those new-fangled combines. He probably has a rotary dial phone in his shop right next to the Dippity-Do hair gel dispenser for fortifying his perky crew cut on those windy north-central Montana days.

Obviously, I'm betting the odds of one of these guys sending an electronic image of his junk out into cyberspace is pretty slim.

Still, I think Tester is our best chance for a Weiner-licious dust up at the Internet corral. Of course, it'll be a wiener-pig issue that I picture going down like this:

Some low-level flunky, volunteering in Tester's opponent's campaign during the next election, sets out to curry favors with his fearless leader by creating a scandal in the Tester camp. He sends a message out on Twitter that "Sen. Tester showed his wiener to a crowd at the county fair today."

Within minutes, news of his alleged nefarious action is picked up by bloggers and within hours by legitimate news sites. Then FoxNews.com publishes a story with quotes from the unnamed source saying that Tester is "planning to go home to 'butcher his hog' and, later, give 'packages of his cold, hard meat' to special friends."

Later that day, several Montana papers run a photo of Tester at the Chouteau County fair pointing out to a small crowd of people the 300-pound pig he bought at the 4-H market livestock auction.

Unwilling to admit that they were duped into misreporting a news story, national news outlets begin running stories like "Tester brags about his 300-pound wiener" and "Tester buys hog, plans to campaign astride the new Harley this year."

Tester's only comment is: "Huh?"

(Porkishly perfect pictures available online via [email protected].)