I've long advocated that the best thing politicians can do to manage their presence on Twitter is to log in, browse to the "settings" page and click on "Deactivate my account." This is because Twitter just seems like an avenue for embarrassment and unforced errors for lawmakers. (Technically, it's an avenue for embarrassment and unforced errors for everyone, but I digress.)
See, even when you are not creating scandal for yourself by tweeting pictures of your swollen genitals to people who are not your spouse, or breaching established security protocols, or ruining your awesome legislative coup attempts by bragging about them before they happen, thus allowing your partisan opponents to thwart you, there's a good chance that even your efforts to have nice-time communications with people will invite a certain amount of ridicule. And, as Katie Glueck reports, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) has written himself once again into the annals of congressional Twitter follies:
Rep. Steve Cohen appears to have sent and then deleted an eyebrow-raising tweet to performer Cyndi Lauper.
"@cyndilauper great night,couldn't believe how hot u were.see you again next Tuesday.try a little tenderness. http://t.co/zz4Orccryf," read a tweet from the Tennessee Democrat's verified Twitter account, which appeared on the website Politwoops, a project of the Sunlight Foundation that documents deleted tweets from lawmakers.
In the interest of real-keeping, if this had been just about anyone else in the world tweeting compliments to Cyndi Lauper, it would be greeted with a collective “Bqhatevwr.” But since Cohen is an elected official, this is somehow "eyebrow-raising." Yeah, it's not fair. Maybe Cohen can just use his franking privileges to send Lauper a letter next time?
Glueck goes on to report that Cohen -- apparently a big Cyndi Lauper fan and frequent Twitter-celebrator of her talents -- "had been at a White House event earlier in the week that celebrated Memphis soul music, at which Lauper performed." She also helpfully points out that "try a little tenderness" is a reference to the "name of a song," and not some kind of outré request. (Had Cohen referenced "She Bop," it might have been more scandalous.)
Anyway, the last time Cohen was causing "eyebrows" to "raise" -- I guess? -- because of Twitter, it was because of seemingly flirty tweets to a woman named Victoria Brink, which subsequently led to the revelation that Brink was actually Cohen's daughter. Chances are, history is not going to repeat itself in the case of these Cyndi Lauper tweets, though I think it's fair to say that if it did it would be pretty amazing.
[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not?]
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