Digby nails O’Keefe and company:
I’m not sure what this was trying to prove, but there’s little doubt that these guys are jackasses of the highest order. They are just mean little pranksters seeking to entrap low level clerks into validating bigots’ worst imaginations. The fact that the MSM never did any real investigations of these little creeps before now and gave them credibility instead, is a sad comment on journalism.
The thing you have to realize about these guys is that they are not trying to prove anything. They are simply trying to validate all the nonsense they and their followers already believe. If they were interested in proving anything, they would look at contrary evidence and allow that to factor into their judgment. But they don’t, do they?
eastriver
The are striving to win a Poo-litzer.
jeffreyw
Worthless scum.
very reverend crimson fire of compassion
It’s the South Park school of investigative journalism.
eastriver
Or perhaps win a Pee-body.
General Winfield Stuck
Mean spirited with planetary size sense of entitlement = wingnut brat
beltane
We’ve had enough sad comments on the state of our media establishment. They have, in my humble opinion, been tried and found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt back in 2002 if not earlier. Instead of complaining about the media, I wish we could do something about it, because if we don’t do something about it, this country will soon become the type of place no one in their right mind would want to live in.
That said, I have no idea of what should be done. I just get more and more pissed off by the day.
eastriver
Maybe a Pen/Fucknutter Award
Balconesfault
No – there’s plenty of evidence they ‘forum shopped’, in the sense of going to lots of ACORN offices, getting run out of lots of ACORN offices, and then running with heavily edited to the media to make their case that proved ACORNs inherent corruption.
I think that by extension, O’Keefe just proved that all right leaning journalists are soulless hacks with the inherent dedication to truth of Boratz and none of his humor.
eastriver
If they were in Britain they might be considered for the Man Hooker Prize.
gnomedad
OT, a bit of WTF from James Fallows:
Annie
These are young, spoiled brats, of an age where if they really believed in the conservative narrative, they would be in Iraq or Afghanistan fighting for what they supposedly believed. For them, the poor can fight and die, while they can shame the poor at home, who are just doing what they can do to survive.
If O’Keefe and his enablers really believed in exposing corruption, let them assume fake identities and invade defense contractors who have soaked taxpayers out of billions of dollars, without fear of accountability or retribution. No, instead they prey on the weak, and then assume the high road.
What pisses me off most is that they are posturing on rightwing media as victims…Rather than shits who broke the law.
Incertus
You know, Salon ran some great articles just yesterday (I believe) about O’Keefe and company and their shady backgrounds. Which is great and all, but why didn’t they do that back when the ACORN story dropped? Or did they and everyone just missed it? It’s not like they found anything that was hidden from view.
slag
This is Fox’s entire mission statement.
handy
@Annie:
Hey, they’re just following their heroes. You know, Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, etc.
Annie
@handy:
Exactly. Good post….
Tax Analyst
heh-heh.
Maybe a “No-balls Prize”, too.
28 Percent
You keep trying John Cole but the real truth is AND YOU KNOW IT that the contrary “evidence” is only to show that liberals do not believe in anything not even in their mission to destroy the AMERICA our FOUNDERS DIED for and they will do anything to full fill that mission even pretend not to be on it to try to cover it up. They want us to think that they are only interested in helping poor people but teh secret TRUTH is that by “helping” people instead of makeing them all stand ON THEIR OWN FEET BY THEIR OWN BOOTSTRAPS they are bringing us all down they will not admit it but THANK G-D we have James O’Keefe who will expose them for the “helpful” people they are!
DougW
@28 Percent
Obviously the 28% refers to your ID=28% of your age.
GWB did more to kill our Democracy than ever was done by liberals, or even the Democratic Party.
Anne Laurie
@Balconesfault:
Well, yeah, but O’Keefe didn’t prove that single-handed. Look at his employer Breitbart for instance, or Tucker Carlson’s latest vanity project, or Roger Simon’s circular firing squad, or…
DougW
@28 Percent
Obviously the 28% refers to your IQ=28% of your age.
GWB did more to kill our Democracy than ever was done by liberals, or even the Democratic Party.
eastriver
@DougW:
Dougie, you might want to swap in new batteries in your Satire Detector.
gwangung
This thread is pretty useless; it’s echo chamber stuff unless we spread the word that these hacks successfully framed ACORN, and the so-called liberal mass media didn’t do a thing to correct it.
Sly
@gnomedad:
Although both are obstructionist, there’s a difference between voting to delay and voting to kill. Having the 60 threshold protracts legislative business overall. Fewer bills passed amounts to fewer accomplishments.
It basically means that the GOP is willing to have the government grind to a halt in order to make the Democrats look ineffective. Which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone, considering they literally shut the government down between late 1995 and early 1996.
The Republic of Stupidity
@28 Percent:
Can anybody here translate Gibberish?
Is that really satire?
If it is… it’s damned good…
eco2geek
Good point. It brings to mind the larger question of what all this so-called “populist rage” the teabaggers are supposed to have is all about. How does it help anyone to cut down an agency whose mission, among others, is to help people of low to moderate income get better housing and more community development? There aren’t any poor teabaggers out there?
(I was probably too harsh on that Acorn gal the other day. She got set up by O’Keefe & Co. But, but, it was all DougJ’s fault for calling Jon Stewart a douchebag. I mean, really. Also.)
xian
the trolls here are seriously tripping my Poe’s Law detector
M.T. Head
Anybody else think James O’Keefe’s and Lee Harvey Oswald’s mugshots were ‘separated at birth’?
kay
People get married for all kinds of reasons, and there’s no inquisition when you go get a marriage license.
Why people get married is actually none of these self-appointed roving attorney’s general business, and it’s none of the court clerk’s business, either.
It is sort of amusing that these sheltered little hothouse flowers are under the impression that there’s some sort of commitment inquiry required as a condition of getting a marriage license.
They’re now enforcing laws that don’t exist. It was bad enough when they appointed themselves cop, judge and jury, but they’re now actually inventing some sort of “conservative code” that doesn’t exist outside their fevered imagination.
You know, I thought American Taliban was a stretch, but it’s looking more and more accurate.
How long until they’re secretly taping all of us?
Tom
I knew O’Keefe was a jackass of this highest order 10 seconds into his first video.
They show O’Keefe, dressed rather plainly in a button-down shirt and dress pants, walking with his faux-ho who’s dressed garishly in stereotypically hookerish clothing.
Then there’s an audio clip of an ACORN working saying something like “he was dressed rather plainly.”
The video screeches to a halt and O’Keefe asks incredulously “rather plainly?” and goes on to describe what the WOMAN is wearing — mink stole, stilleto heals, etc… — even though it’s clear the ACORN guy was referring to O’Keefe when he said “dressed rather plainly.”
The guy is just an idiot.
chrome agnomen
is our trolls learning?
Gregory
Word. You should have heard “even-the-liberal” NPR last night running a story that called O’Keefe an “advocacy journalist” instead of the more accurate “political activist and dirty trickster.” Sheesh.
rachel
@M.T. Head: Naw, he looks more like Timothy McVeigh.
lou
A few years ago, I had the misfortune of having to attend a conference at a hotel where the Young Republicans were also meeting.
It was eerie. They all looked alike. They all looked like O’Keefe, only dressed in chinos, cheap blazers, button-down shirts and red ties.
Evinfuilt
@The Republic of Stupidity:
His satire used to be easy to read, but then we all found out how insane the 28 percenters have gotten (see the sheep ad) and so he had to up his game to pure gibberish.
I hear WorldNetDaily is hoping to hire him.