[There was a video here]

Kirsten Powers, a Fox News correspondent who is also a Democrat (see update), thinks wang-flashing Rep. Anthony Weiner should resign. Why should we listen to her? Because she used to date him, she explains in a column entitled "Anthony Weiner's Ex: He Lied to Me."

I briefly dated Anthony almost a decade ago after meeting him at a postcampaign party for the 2002 New York gubernatorial race, during which I had worked as Andrew Cuomo's press secretary. The relationship didn't last, but we stayed friends. While we were dating, he traveled with my family to Costa Rica for Christmas, and years later I spent Thanksgiving with his when I was stranded in New York City because of work. He was a strong support when my father died suddenly from a heart attack seven years ago. When a relationship I had been hopeful about ended in 2006, he cleared his calendar to spend a Saturday with me and reassure me about my decision. We only dated for three months, and he was for the most part a doting boyfriend and my family was very fond of him.

Also, his pregnant and totally-screwed-over wife did her a huge favor, once:

In the past few years, we didn't see each other or communicate much, though when my husband's parents were recently trapped in Egypt during the revolution, he helped to connect me to his wife, Huma, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to facilitate their getting out.

But Weiner's initial lie about "hackers" was so bad, it erased Kirsten's good will. (She didn't really need those in-laws, anyway.) Now she's going scorched-earth on Weiner:

In short, he was a friend whom I cared for very much, even if I thought he had issues he needed to deal with. It was because of this friendship that I believed him when he told me last week that he had done nothing wrong. In an email to me he wrote: "Why not to call the cops: Personal account, no federal case, we don't know yet what they got, I didn't send it, statements on sat, sun, monday, the girl said she doesn't know me, I don't know her. The people I follow are all people who ask. We've hired a law firm but not to protect me, to put together the team to figure out how we prevent and maybe civil or criminal next steps. We don't know where this photo came from. We have theories. Until we know for sure we open up legal hornets nest if we say."

He knew I was going on the show Hannity, where I would use this false information to defend him in front of millions of people. I did, and I regret it. [...] Congressman Weiner has fallen far short of even the low standard to which we generally hold our elected officials. It's time for him to go.

This image was lost some time after publication.

Anyway, the above video shows Powers shuddering and rolling her eyes as she is introduced as Anthony Weiner's ex-girlfriend on Fox News. (She was there to discuss the "He Lied to Me" column. Did she not anticipate being introduced that way?) Lest we ever forget the human toll of Weinergate, here is a GIF depicting Kirsten Powers' shame at being identified as a Weiner woman. [Daily Beast, Fox News]

Update: A previous version of this article identified Kirsten Powers as a "Democratic correspondent for Fox News (it's like being a cat that walks on a leash)," but Powers objects to this description. Here are her other objections:

from Kirsten Powers Makary
to maureen@gawker.com
date Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 3:35 PM
subject your post

dI'm not trying to be whiny esp b/c i get that gawker is snarky but i do feel your post was really mis representative

First, I never said people should listen to me b/c i dated him for three months 8 years ago. I don't write the headlines. I disclosed that I dated him, b/c to not do so would be weird, since it's been reported in many profiles of him, and i did that stupid ny post interview about dating him, which i regret. To not mention that i dated him would have generated plenty of complaints about me not disclosing everything.

Second, Huma didn't get my in-laws out of Egypt. She merely connected me by email to the embassy contact and the embassy was beyond useless. We got them out by getting them on one of the few commercial flights still going out of the country, not on the State Dept plane. I disclosed the information about him helping me to try and paint a more multi dimensional picture of him, instead of writing something that basically says "he's rotten to the core."

I was quite clear that him lying to me had almost nothing to do with me turning on him...in fact as i write, i defended him on Great after his press conference which is after he lied to me. It was the extensive and sociopathic lying that i saw in the clips the following day that started me to turning against him, along with info that he coached the porn star on how to lie, had lied to donors etc and then I felt i had to say something about the predatory behavior and misogyny since I write on feminist issues often.

Anyway, just wanted to share that with you.

Best,
kp

from Kirsten Powers Makary
to maureen@gawker.com
date Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 3:58 PM
subject also

i'm not a democratic correspondent. there is no such thing. i'm a political analyst and i'm a democrat.