I guess the trouble I’m having in wrapping my mind around this James O’Keefe story is trying to figure out what the hell he thought he was going to accomplish for his side with this sociopathic scheme. Right-wingers may be sick, but their tactics frequently work, and that was certainly true of O’Keefe with regard to ACORN — people believed what the heavily edited videos showed and ACORN was ruined. But why did he think he’d win a victory for his team by videotaping himself phonily “seducing” an older female reporter, who clearly would be repulsed by it, and would give him nothing to work with, except that she might literally be a captive on the boat, which takes this into the realm of criminal sexual behavior? What the hell audience did he think would watch this and derive a political point from watching him act like a sexual-predator-in-air-quotes, a harasser Joaquin Phoenix? Who, even among teabaggers, did he think would watch this and think it put him and conservatism in a good light, and CNN and the reporter in a bad light? How far removed from reality is this guy?
Any thoughts what O’Keefe thought he might accomplish? Any chance this will be made into a movie like that one about Facebook? That guy in the Facebook movie looks a lot like O’Keefe, but I don’t see who JT plays in this one.
General Stuck
To highlight the whorish nature of the evile libtard media willing to offer their bodies for a chance to draw good jeebus loving wingnuts into their dens of iniquity for a scoop.
Or, he just wanted to get laid.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@General Stuck:
I’m going with option 2.
fourlegsgood
Oh please, O’Keefe is such a budding star in the sick world of young conservative activists that he probably thought it would work. Seriously. He believes that a. he’s a stud and b. that the CNN reporter really is a “bubble-headed dumb blonde.
It’s clear to us that she’d be repulsed by it, but I doubt it was clear to him. Didn’t you see the photos of him hanging out in his ray bans with a chick hanging on him after the Mary Landeau caper? He truly thinks he’s all that.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
What are the odds he’ll be a member of the House inside of ten years?
fourlegsgood
@General Stuck: yes, he really thought he might get laid and then get to embarrass the reporter and ruin her career.
He’s that stupid.
General Stuck
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
yup
fourlegsgood
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): Don’t give him any ideas.
Comrade Luke
I’m not sure you can tell what his “plan” was, because if what he has done in the past holds he shoots a ton of video and then edits it to advance some theme. Without the tons of video he can’t define the theme. For all we know this reporter might have been the first in a series of women who got taped, at which point he’d edit everything to advance the story.
We’ll never know.
schrodinger's cat
OT DougJ@top
I have a math question, what is the history behind determinants, who thought of them first and what problem were they trying to solve.
geg6
Well, what with the location (a boat that could be moved from the dock), the conspicuous discussion of handcuffs, and hidden cameras, I’m thinking we have a sexual predator here.
This screamed “rape” to me the minute I read his little plan and what he had as props.
calipygian
I think he may have been planning to sexually assault and kill the CNN correspondent. At least that is one possibility that should be investigated.
Sharl
In the highly unlikely scenario – the one in which the reporter would have followed this creep’s script to the end, then left the boat without injury or other criminal incident taking place – the creep would have a bunch of raw video, waiting to be creatively edited according to whatever self-serving story he could fashion the scrolling pixels around.
Golly, it sure worked with destroying ACORN, after all.
Edit: in other words, what Luke @8 said.
You Don't Say
Great post title. ;-)
Clambone
James O’Keefe thought that he was exposing CNN and CNN journalist Abbie Boudreau for “using the inherent sexuality of these women.” You know, my wife is a beautiful woman who works for a living. If she was doing her job and some guy thought it was appropriate to confine, humiliate and threaten her in order to punish her for her “inherent sexuality,” I like to think that I’d have the decency to break his fucking jaw.
Also, I can’t help but think that it would have been a thrill to watch him attack a TV news organization for using “bubble-headed-bleach-blonde” on FOX News. This FOX News?
marthajoy.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/blond_women_of_fox.jpg
KG
@fourlegsgood: actually, it’s not a bad idea, he wouldn’t be able to do much damage there.
You Don't Say
@calipygian: And it would irresponsible *not* to speculate.
Martin
I think only a Republican can unravel this plot. I’m still struggling to understand why two wetsuits. This one is way beyond my reasoning.
Guster
The plan was the same as with ACORN. Put a ‘political enemy’ in a ridiculous situation with camera rolling, and edit later.
Maybe she would’ve said, “Yeah, I’m here because I wanna get laid by a radical rightwing fake journalist,” and then we would’ve had two weeks of ‘CNN admits bias against conservatives,’ maybe she would’ve said, ‘How do I get off this fucking boat?’ and we would’ve had two weeks of ‘Does CNN endorse heartland-offending foul language?’
PurpleGirl
O’Keefe is clearly unbalanced and needs a long vacation in a sanitarium with lots of appropriate medication.
fanshawe
You have trouble believing that “bitchy reporter who was asking for it got what was coming to her” would find traction anywhere?
You can’t see a Fox News chyron reading
“Do Female Reporters Abuse Their Sexuality To Get Stories?”
You can’t see pundits providing endless recitations of “While O’Keefe’s actions were questionable, this episode raises important questions how female reporters should behave when persuing male sources and subjects.”
You really can’t see any of that at all?
beltane
The only reason these tactics have “worked” is that the media aids and abets people like O’Keefe and Breitbart. O’Keefe could have found himself in a lot of trouble after that incident involving Mary Landrieu’s office, but he was given nothing but a slap on the wrist, which probably led him to believe he could get away with anything.
What did he hope to accomplish? Like other sexual deviants, O’Keefe found a welcoming home in the conservative movement. This doesn’t mean that he is not first and foremost some kind of sexual predator who happens to enjoy combining his own personal fetishes with the more usual fetishes of the wingnutosphere. Back in the 60’s and 70’s there were a number of European films which rather gruesomely chronicled the close relationship between far-right politics and sexual perversion. Americans tend to not have the stomach for such things.
schrodinger's cat
@Clambone: Attack of the clones? As a dark haired woman, I have never understood why blonds are considered more attractive?
Mark S.
@calipygian:
It would be irresponsible . . .
Why does the non-Fox media pay any attention to anything O’Keefe and his bear Breitbart do now? Twice they’ve been shown to be complete frauds, so who the fuck cares about some music video or whatever the fuck was the reason a CNN reporter was trying to interview this douchebag for?
ETA: Too slow
Stacy
Best case scenario is that he had some fantasy that she’d think “Hey, I see dildos! I’ve got him now! Time to get the dirt!” and fake-seduce him back, in which he could then use his “CNN is using hot blondes to put out smear articles on us” thing that he seems to hint at.
Worst case scenario is that he buys into the misogynist notion that if you go through all that trouble to impress/seduce a woman, she’s a total stuck up bitch for turning you down.
Ultimate worst case scenario is that he actually thought he could seduce her.
kth
I don’t think he really thought he was going to get lucky with the CNN lady. Rather, he intended some kind of agitprop, the implication being that someone like Katie Couric gets stories by batting her eyelashes and flipping her hair, and how would they like it if someone treated them equally disrespectfully.
Surely this line of reasoning fits O’Keefe’s character, and the simplest explanation for the madcap quality of the caper was that copious amounts of Breitbart’s best hooch and blow were involved.
beltane
@calipygian: I honestly think O’Keefe’s career as a Republican operative is the only thing preventing him from being your garden variety serial killer. That’s how disturbing this incident is. Too bad Ms. Boudreau was not equipped with pepper spray. That’s a video I’d like to have seen.
brent
That guy in the Facebook movie looks a lot like O’Keefe
Thats Jesse Eisenburg, definitely an up and comer, and I think he would probably be pretty upset to think that he resembled O’Keefe in any significant way.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@schrodinger’s cat:
So there’s this Cramer’s rule that predates matrices by many years and was used to solve linear equations. That’s the origin of determinants as I see it — they were part of a formula to solve several linear equations in several variables.
Alwhite
I think I know what his plan was. He was going to give something juicy to CNN but provide heavily edited versions to FUAX news so that when CNN ran the actual encounter FAUX would call them out as liars trying to discredit Jimmy & his band of butt-fucks.
It would be a win-win as CNN would look bad & jimmy & BFs would forever be able to claim all evidence against them as a smear job.
piratedan
perhaps this was simply training for the Rupublicans “ethics squad” as mandated by Vitter, Ensign, Coburn and Sandford. It’s never too early to get those moral and ethical skeletons into the closet.
Zifnab
O’Keefe wanted attention.
He’s a new breed of Republican asshole. He doesn’t give a shit about politics. He just realized he’s completely untouchable by any serious authority. And he’s gotten a taste of the circus-media kool-aid.
This was all a stunt designed to let him run around on the FOX News / Andrew Brietbart / Rush Limbaugh circuit.
qwerty42
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
I think the odds are better that he will be incarcerated inside ten years.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@geg6:
Yes, the whole thing is creepy that way. If Boudreau is like the woman reporters I know, she’s pretty tough and probably would have ended up cold-cocking him with a bottle of the cheap bubbly Keefe had on hand.
Zifnab
@qwerty42: These statements don’t rule each other out.
qwerty42
@Zifnab: Point taken.
Nellcote
A slight silver lining in Rick Sanchez’s backgrounders on OKeef. Rick emphasizes that ACORN was exonerated of charges and the videos were HEAVILY edited. Too late, I know but still…
I don’t think “seduce” means what OKeef thinks it means.
bemused
Is this ridiculous escapade going to be included in CNN’s “Right On The Edge” this weekend? I want to know who wrote the script for little Jimmy or who worked with him on the plot.
This would be a credibility killer in a sane country but Fox zombies will stay faithful.
Ricardo
Abbie Boudreau indicated in one of the news accounts that a phone conversation between her and professional asshole James “G. Gordon Diddy” O’Keefe was recorded without her knowledge. I don’t know Maryland law, but might that be illegal?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Step 1: Get female reporter on board.
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit!
He’s a fReichtard, they don’t do plans. And you can bet he’s going to do a lot more crazy stuff because he is not very smart.
georgia pig
It probably was all win in his fucked up mind. Maybe he thought there was a chance she really wanted to do his skinny ass. If she didn’t, he’d get off on the intimidation and discomfort he could generate by trapping her alone on a boat full of dildos. He’d also manipulate the shit out of what footage he got to further fuck with her and forward his career in the cesspool that is the American right. I guess it’s not that big a surprise considering what he did with the Acorn scam — he decided to pose as a pimp. Gee, a classic male sex/power role. He could have posed as a drug dealer, food stamp hustler or whatever stereotype of welfare malfeasance that plays in wingnut land but, no, he gets into some weird role playing with sexual overtones. I predict three wetsuits and a ball gag.
Dennis SGMM
O’Keefe wants to be the conservative version of “Jackass.”
fucen tarmal
it sounds like a job for the jesus-freak baldwin, “the lost brother”
maybe blanket jackson, michael’s son, what ever it takes to turn up the wtf, its the politics of mass distraction, that is the big the little and the middle, can i get an amen?
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Ricardo: Recording without permission is illegal here. I don’t know if he was using a cell phone and if that makes a difference (if the number was based in another state). I also don’t recall how Tripp got away with it. Did they just decide not to prosecute?
Edit – Of course, Tripp wasn’t also a few months into probation for a Federal crime. Maybe the master plan is Get Thrown in Jail & Become a Martyr.
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Thanks! So determinants came before matrices, I thought it was the other way around.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@georgia pig:
If that’s all it takes to shut the little fucker up permanently, I’ll spring for the rubber goods.
I have issues with Baltimore
@Ricardo: How timely! In MD, all parties must consent to being recorded, audio or video, unless that recording is made in public. Where this clearly wouldn’t have been the case. This came up as an issue when that motorcyclist recorded the cop pulling him over a while back.
Redwood Rhiadra
@kommrade reproductive vigor: That’s also assuming he was actually in Maryland during that call, and not in DC, say, where such recording is entirely legal. (In most states and in DC, recording a phone call requires consent of only one party).
Comrade Luke
I eagerly await Erik Erickson’s opinion on this.
Binzinerator
@beltane:
I don’t know about serial killer because I don’t have the medical expertise or knowledge to say that’s what he is. But this thing he does with his ‘journalism’, I don’t need to be a shrink to see he’s playing games with reality and people for more than political purposes.
The ‘investigative reporting’ with the play-acting, the costume dress-up and props — it’s a nifty way to act out some of his fantasies and manipulate people into playing parts in them. It doesn’t have to be only for political purposes, and I don’t think it is.
And it seems to me his ‘roles’ all have some sexual component to it: Pimp, electronic peeping tom (bugging Landrieu’s office), studly seducer.
There’s something really fucked up with that boy. And he’s got some disturbing issues with women, power and sex.
Jim Crozier
The reporter in question IS actually pretty hot.
Maybe his master plan involved getting laid and then getting paid by selling the footage of him getting it on with a prominent TV personality?
Uriel
@georgia pig:
Isn’t that the ad slogan for the NRO cruise?
calipygian
@Uriel: Dildos and the NRO FTW!
Jager
Thinking back to my single days, I can’t imagine what the women I dated would have thought if I brought them to a “pleasure palace” with jars of condums, vibrators, dildos and furry fucking handcuffs on display. I’d still be trying to get my balls back into normal position.
Bill Arnold
@schrodinger’s cat:
Also, wikipedia has a screen full of history, if it can be believed. But yeah, linear equations first.
demimondian
@Nellcote: Actually, I think that it means exactly what he thinks it means. The root Latin, “se ducere” (to pull aside violently), means “to rape”.
Don Giovanni wasn’t a serial sweet talker; he was a serial rapist.
Ruckus
@Binzinerator:
There’s something really fucked up with that boy. And he’s got some disturbing issues with women, power and sex.
So it’s for sure he’s a rethuglican then
The Republic of Stupidity
@Binzinerator:
I don’t know if I pick up ‘serial killer’ in his behavior, but there’s definitely something seriously sociopathic about this…
Amen to that, brudda… or sistah, as the case may be…
I do not foresee a long and happy life for Mr. O’keefe if he keeps up this sort of incredibly nasty behavior…
morzer
What did he think he was going to accomplish?
Sometimes a creepy little pervert is just a creepy little pervert.
morzer
@demimondian:
No, seducere in Latin means “to lead aside or astray”. It does not mean rape at all. “Rape” in Latin is “rapere” – “to seize violently”, or “violare” to “to violate, profane”.
Bob In Pacifica
I thought this guy was going to jail for that caper down in Louisiana.
Comrade Darkness
Wasn’t one of Naked Scott Brown’s darling girls dating this escapee from loserville? I hope she dumped him before catching the STDs that have clearly eaten O’Keefe’s brain.
joe from Lowell
He’s so arrogant and deluded that he thought she’d actually swoon for him and embarrass herself.
Because of course she would. These wingnuts who never get laid always think da ladies are just panting for them.
asiangrrlMN
@geg6: This this this a thousand times this. He has sexual predator written all over him. Ugh. Again, the more I think/read about it, the more I get creeped out.
vernonlee
Why is he not in jail?
The creepy little fuck.
Blue Loon
I believe Comment #17 from Martin is the winner. Republicans……they live in their own weird little world.
I know. I know. Why two wet suit?
Porlock Junior
Wait. Something’s missing here. This is about the third comments thread I’ve looked at for this story, and no one has yet said the secret word. It’s a common word, something you see every day:
Richard Nixon
Rather, G Gordon Liddy et al., who during Watergate had a plot to set up an Oriental (i.e., lotsa slinky degenerate Chinese gals that degenerate liberals will go for) pleasure boat on the Potomac that they’d get liberals onto and then blackmail them.
No shit. The coincidence here is too good to be coincidental. The story is a bit obscure (Google doesn’t easily yield a reference), but the wingnuts surely have their traditions. I mean, Liddy is still breathing, and a highly respected expert among the shit-for-brains crowd.
Triassic Sands
What did O’Keefe think he’d accomplish?
A headline and another fifteen minutes in the spotlight. What else is there?