TPMMuckraker

Sweeney: Up In Smoke?

As we noted in an italicized euphemism earlier, it appears that one of the young college students partying with Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) was smoking something that may not have included tobacco. Others — the Stakeholder, <cough cough> — had similar suspicions.

Here is the original of that picture:

We jumped on the story at once. We tracked down someone from the party, and even got our hands on more photographs, including a high-resolution copy of the photograph that appeared in the local college paper. Our photo-forensic team pored over the snaps, and came to a unanimous conclusion: it’s a legitimate smoke. You can see the definitive close-up below …




That’s not to say the dude isn’t a major tokaholic — there’s a picture of Bob Marley pinching a joint on his shirt. But it’s no spliff he’s holding in the pic. Sometimes, a cigarette is just a cigarette:

John Sweeney

Facebook Conversations

Editor & Publisher

Josh Marshall

Managing Editor

David Kurtz

Senior Associate Editor

Paul Werdel

Associate Editor

Sara Libby

Assistant Editor

Igor Bobic

Reporters

Brian Beutler

Carl Franzen

Sahil Kapur

Eric Kleefeld

Eric Lach

Nick Martin

Evan McMorris-Santoro

Ryan J. Reilly

Benjy Sarlin

Front Page Editor

David Taintor

Poll Editor

Kyle Leighton

News Writer

Pema Levy

Video Editor

Michael Lester

Polling Fellow

Tom Kludt

Video Fellow

Clayton Ashley

Research Interns

Michael Brooks

Publishing Intern

Christopher O’Driscoll

Miles Read

General Manager & General Counsel

Millet Israeli

VP, Ad Sales

Bruce Ellerstein

Waldo Tibbetts

Bob Edmunds

Manager, Ad Operations and Sales Support

Versha Sharma

Deputy Publisher

Callie Schweitzer

Director of Technology

Eric Buth

Designer/Developer

Ni Mu

Matthew Wozniak

Tech Fellow

Dennis Cahillane