The Week on Politwoops: two governors regret images, a senatorial bathroom and more

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A deleted photo from the personal Twitter account of Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas.
Deleted image via Politwoops.

It was another busy week for Politwoops as a number of deletions were broadly picked up by major media outlets. We start the roundup with Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, who deleted this tweet with an image mocking the drunk driving arrest of District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. The deletion riffs on the popular “Most Interesting Man in the World” meme and incorrectly implies that Lehmberg was involved in Perry’s later indictment for abusing his official capacity and coercing a public servant.

Perry later posted a tweet saying “A tweet just went out from my account that was unauthorized. I do not condone the tweet and I have taken it down” but his press office has previously stated that “the governor has sole control of his personal Twitter account.”

A deleted tweet from the official account of Gov. Jack Markell, D-Del., that included an unusual image selection caught by Politwoops.
Deleted tweet via Politwoops.

Gov. Jack Markell, D-Del., deleted the tweet to the left following a press conference about disadvantaged students. The shortened image link curiously went to an old selfie by an Estonian model named Precious Little wearing what appears to be leather straps. While there was no nudity, it was certainly a surprising image to use and Markell’s account quickly deleted the tweet and posted an apology saying, “An inappropriate photo was inadvertantly [sic] sent out earlier. We are looking into how this occurred but apologize to anyone who was offended.”

In a later statement to the media, Markell’s office said it was due to the inadvertent truncation of the link and “The lessons here are not to compose tweets too quickly and there is a lot of odd stuff on the Internet. We just wish the accidental link had been a cat video.”

Over the weekend, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., deleted two tweets with images of a luxuriously outfitted marble tiled bathroom. It’s unclear if the senator himself was responsible for this or a member of his staff as the account did not respond to my request for comment:

In other deleted tweets this week, the campaign account for Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-N.H., deleted a tweet saying “I just signed @annmclanekuster’s birthday card! You should join me” and Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., deleted a retweet a day later that called former President George H.W. Bush as “thoroughly decent and honorable man.” Press mentions this week included CNN, UPI, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Twitchy, My Fox Philly, Daily Dot, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Delaware Online and Wonkette who called Politwoops the “always-valuable deleted-tweets website.”