I remember the first time that I really paid attention to Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY).

He was in a shouting match with Fox News Anchor Megyhn Kelly and was acting like a totally obnoxious jerk.

As  I later found out…he wasn’t acting.

Yesterday, after a week of denying showing off his shortcomings while engaged in a practice that schoolkids call “sexting”, and posting a lewd picture of himself on Twitter, Weiner broke down in a press conference, admitting most of what he did, and asking for forgiveness.

However, he refused to resign from the House of Representatives.

From behind a podium at the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Weiner made the following statement:

Last Friday night I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted it to Twitter, I panicked, I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.

Weiner then apologized to the Seattle student whom he sent the tweet to.

Conservative reporter and web mogul Andrew Breitbart had gotten hold of new photographs of Weiner in all his glory (can I say that?), forcing the Congressman into a hastily-prepared press conference.

According to Weiner:

To be clear, the picture was of me and I sent it. I am deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my wife, Huma, and our family, andmy constituents, my friends, supporters and staff.

The Democrat Congressman from New York came under national scrutiny last week for a dirty photo sent from his Twitter account of a man in grey underwear to a 21-year-old woman.

Before delivering his mea culpa yesterday, the juvenile congressman had told anyone who would listen that it was not him who sent that photo. Weiner claimed that he had been hacked.

Hardly the word that I would have used, considering the image in the photo…

Weiner had immediately got himself a lawyer to advise him on what legal action should be taken. According to his spokesman Dave Arnold, the congressman’s “accounts were obviously hacked.”

Again, an uncomfortable term to use in this situation.

The “crotch” photo was first reported Saturday by Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com.

Before Weiner even took the podium, Breitbart was behind it, answering the media’s questions per their request.

Anonymous sources claim that Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, wanted to stand by her husband at the press conference, but Weiner would not allow her to attend, proclaiming to her

it’s my responsibility. I’ll deal with it.

Weiner also said that

over the past few years I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, and occasionally on the phone with women I have met online.

He went on to say that he

exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years.

Per the disgraced Congressman, “most” of the flirtatious electronic messaging took place before his marriage, but he was forced to admit that some took place afterward.

According to Meagan Broussard, a 26-year-old single mother from Texas, Weiner was eager to

hear about if I wanted him or thought he was attractive.

Which is this idiot? A United States Congressman or a Middle Schooler?

Weiner told everyone gathered that:

I’m not resigning, and I’m going to try very hard to go back to work a better man and a better husband, too.

Uh Huh. Gimme that ol’ time contrition.

Keeping his job may not be up to Rep. Weiner. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi immediately called for an ethics committee investigation to see if House rules were broken. Weiner’s office then released a statement saying I welcome and will fully cooperate with an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

When reporters asked him if he would split from his wife, Weiner said he loved wife Abedin very much and that they would not split.

That may not be his option, either.

After his press conference, Congressman Weiner appropriately snuck out of the hotel via the back door, followed by photographers.

Regardless of Weiner’s reprehensible actions, Liberal talking heads on all the cable and broadcast news programs are still vainly attempting to defend this pervert, blaming his actions on the pressures of the office, and attempting all manner of moral equivalency arguments in Weiner’s defense.

Check out Baba Wawa, Joyless Behar, and the rest of the hens on ABC’s The View:

BARBARA WALTERS: Anthony Weiner, whom I also know, has a problem. He can be very sarcastic and very sardonic and, you know, there are a lot of times you wish he would not say it. He is a good congressman. He has been an effective congressman. If Sarah Palin can still ride around on her bus and be considered as a possible president, this man can override this, stay in congress and just hope that there’s another scandal that’ll take him off.

JOY BEHAR: Wait a minute. Let me defend Sarah. Let me defend Sarah.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: A scandal that’s going to take us off in a second is they’re going to black us out. We’re done.

BEHAR: Let me defend Sarah for 30 seconds. The woman has no sex scandal in her dossier, in her arsenal. This is a completely different thing from Sarah Palin, and I want to defend her here.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: I’m taking my pulse.

I think  Mark Twin put it best, when he quipped:

Man is the only animal that blushes…or has a need to.