As soon as I heard about the “scandal” involving Rep. Anthony Weiner, and saw it being pushed like crazy by fraudster Andrew Breitbart, I knew it would turn out to be yet another phony story.

And that’s exactly what happened. If you haven’t heard about the latest Breitbart scam, here’s a pretty good summary (but they should check the spelling of their headline): Brietbart to use SEX SMEAR on Rep. Anthony Weiner.

In a nutshell, someone apparently hacked into Weiner’s Twitter and yfrog (a picture-hosting Twitter app) accounts, posted a lewd photo, then sent a screenshot of it to a student in Seattle. Wingnuts, of course, refuse to believe that Weiner didn’t post it himself.

(Update: there was no hacking involved. The photo was never posted to Weiner’s account. Someone may have photoshopped a screenshot of a yfrog page to make it look like it came from Weiner’s page.)

(Update 2: the story changes again - apparently Weiner’s yfrog account really was cracked, and the image was posted there.)

The New York Times has a report, and I have to ask: when will the media stop treating Andrew Breitbart like a legitimate “conservative” source? The article doesn’t even mention the numerous other frauds perpetrated by this right wing attack dog: Congressman Says Hacker Sent Lewd Photo From His Account.

I mean, good grief. This is how they describe the situation:

The episode unfolded Saturday night when it was reported on the Web site biggovernment.com, run by the conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart. It played out all day Sunday on the Internet, with Mr. Weiner, a Democrat who represents part of Brooklyn and Queens, addressing the matter on his own Twitter and Facebook accounts, and with bloggers from the left and the right arguing about whether this might be the start of a scandal or an example of how easy it is for political rivals to harm each other’s reputations using new technologies.

It just might be an example of how Andrew Breitbart harms people and smears their reputations, because that’s what he does, but you won’t get that context from the Times.

Meanwhile, the student who received the obscene photo is being harassed and stalked on the Internet by deranged right wingers — and that’s also not surprising, because that’s what they do: Student who got lewd pic from Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account denies she’s his mistress.

Cordova said she has been harassed for weeks online after she started following Weiner on Twitter and the congressman added her to the list of about 200 people he follows.

Her harrasser “started posting about me, saying, ‘Oh, the congressman is following school girls,’ tweeting it over and over. It was very annoying,” Cordova told the Daily News. When the crotch shot appeared online, she said the same Twitter user was the first to comment on it.

“Since I had dealt with this person and his cohorts before, I assumed that the tweet and the picture were their latest attempts at defaming the congressman and harassing his supporters,” she said. “Annoyed, I responded with something along the lines of ‘are you f***ing kidding me?’ and ‘I’ve never seen this. You people are sick,’” she said.

Cordova said she blocked her accounts and thought that would be the end of it. But taking down her information only fanned the flames. Cordova said she’s had the worst weekend of her life.

“I’ve watched in sheer disbelief as my name, age, location, links to any social networking site I’ve ever used, my old phone numbers and pictures have been passed along from stranger to stranger.

“My friends have received phone calls from people claiming to be old friends of mine, attempting to obtain my contact information,” she said.

“I also do not have a clear understanding as to how or why exactly I am involved in this fiasco,” she wrote.

“I do know that my life has been seriously impacted by speculation and faulty allegations. My reputation has been called into question by those who lack the character to report the facts.”