To answer DougJ’s question about what O’Keefe thought he might accomplish, it is just this simple. These are wingnut activists feeding a wingnut audience. Any video he got from the boat would have been “proof” of whatever they claimed it would be. These are the folks who took a video of Shirley Sherrod rejecting racism and used it to… call her a racist. These are the folks who had Acorn officials fired for… calling the authorities when they went in and pretended to be sex traffickers and the Acorn folks did the right thing.
All they needed was videotape of anything involving Abbie Bordreaux on that boat. It doesn’t matter if she was repulsed or what she actually did, they would lie and edit the video and it would become whatever they wanted it to be. The wingnut blogs would all circulate it, Howie Kurtz and Fox news would mainstream it, the WaPo Ombudsman would three weeks later issue an apology for not looking into the sluts at CNN earlier, and the Politico would have a dozen “thought” pieces up discussing how this is bad news for Obama and Democrats.
When you make up your own reality and have a media that refuses to call you on your bullshit, the sky is the limit. The video didn’t have to have any evidence, it just had to exist. The wurlitzer could then turn it into whatever they wanted.
It’s just that simple.
*** Update ***
Here is Exhibit A:
Notice anything missing? Like a near complete absence of right wing websites discussing this? They’ll just pretend it never happened, and probably get away with it. Their superstar from last year’s Acorn smears will quickly become “James who?”
And the media will let them.
Southern Beale
Before Jane Hamsher nails you on this, John, the reporter’s name is Abbie Boudreau not Allie Bordreaux …
General Stuck
Nobody shrinks the wingnut head like you Mr. Cole.
Southern Beale
… oh and you are EXACTLY right. It’s the Zelig of media smears. Whatever they needed, it would become.
And as I said downthread, I really REALLY hope this is the final nail in Breitbart’s coffin as a serious media pundit. No more stops on the Bill Maher show, please.
But sadly, I fear this will only lead to O’Keefe getting a WaPo column or some such BS.
JPL
@Southern Beale: Maybe Jane was right, Cole’s a misogynist. It could also be a sign that he’s a crappy typist. Allie could be his next rescues name so all is good.
Scout
Scarily accurate. It sucks that we still have to battle the liberal media meme at the same time we’re battling all the lies and BS said media creates and spreads.
Zifnab
I just can’t wait to hear about how O’Keefe is the victim here.
Bob L
Wonder why they even bother with the video, gives them more control so they can use innuendo and claim to have not shown the really shocking parts?
Michael D.
And don’t forget one of the most important things…
Abbie Boudreau would have been fired by a timid CNN, afraid about what the right wing media might say if they didn’t.
Ash Can
And Jake Tapper is going to start howling any second now about a fellow reporter from a “sister organization” being mistreated, amirite??
LM
Exactly!
Boy do we need a real press corps. Even though a CNN reporter was the target this time, does anyone suppose CNN will report on these guys more skeptically from now on? That would involve more than just skating by repeating, in blandest CNN manner, Rep talking points.
Comrade Javamanphil
Ash Can beat me by moments. Otherwise, a spot on piece, Mr. Cole.
Alwhite
Thats pretty much what I said in comment #29 of his thread.
minachica
Hello, 2!
Citizen Alan
I’m just glad that Bordreaux didn’t get on the boat, because personally, I think he’d have sexually assaulted her, filmed it, and tried to edit it to make it look like she consented. That’s the kind of “person” I think he is.
Zifnab
@Michael D.: That’s what absolutely floors me. CNN likely would have just rolled over and canned her. A completely baseless, meaningless hit piece can cost you a job just… because.
Do Wolf Blitzer and John King stand by, paralyzed with fear of the next underground wingnut hit on their careers. Or do these guys really just not give a shit about mortar fire landing on a co-worker who sits just down the hall?
debbie
I think also when you’re absolutely convinced of the rightness of your cause, you begin to feel invincible, can make no wrong move, and can do no wrong.
arguingwithsignposts
Personally, I want them to ask Erick son of Erick about this. I can’t wait to see him revel in his stoopid.
FlipYrWhig
So the whole point was to get people to say, “hey, Abbie Boudreau, isn’t that the woman from the Dildo Boat?”
Southern Beale
I’ve never met John but I’ll vote for crappy typist, not misogynist. I’ve been known to make similar mistakes.
:-)
Martin
@General Stuck:
Boy, did I read that the wrong way on the first pass.
ppcli
@debbie:
“When you make up your own reality and have a media that refuses to call you on your bullshit, the sky is the limit.”
“I think also when you’re absolutely convinced of the rightness of your cause, you begin to feel invincible, can make no wrong move, and can do no wrong.”
And you start to believe that those letters you wrote to Penthouse forum describe real events.
Mark S.
@Zifnab:
Those two dildoes? I doubt they’ve ever had anyone’s back.
Comrade Mary
I see Tunch!
J.W. Hamner
How hard do you have to work to discredit someone in the wingnut mind? It’s a bit of an “angels dancing on a boat” imponderable, but I suspect this case might get us closer to the asymptote… since undoubtedly Boudreau will be considered a Kenyan anti-colonialist sleeper agent by the wingier nuts precisely because she didn’t play boat.
AhabTRuler
@Mark S.: Well, Wolf’s got Likud covered.
Mike
Since most of what happened here was over the phone, anyone want to speculate on what kind of “audio evidence” we would have gotten?
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@FlipYrWhig: As a part of taking down CNN, yes. Remember, despite CNN being Faux-lite, the wingnuts hate it because they all still think Ted Turner runs it.
General Stuck
This one is about impossible to spin O’Keefe, and by extension conservative activists as the victim, so I suspect you are right. The gutter nature of this one, I disagree a bit on, that CNN and much of the rest of the media will let it go so quickly. It smacks of misogyny and sexual predatory behaviour that the media doesn’t much like. but I could be wrong.
FlipYrWhig
The idea has to have been that if she stayed to conduct the interview it would prove that she was willing to go to embarrassing lengths to get a story, and if she left and complained about it, that would prove that she totally fell for the not-at-all-serious joke. Thus the plan was, basically, make her feel uncomfortable, laugh at her if she lets on, and laugh harder at her if she doesn’t.
ETA: Or, another option, maybe the idea was to show that if she went on the boat in the first place, she would have already demonstrated that she was willing to demean herself for the story, so, bwahaha, O’Keefe wins again!
fourlegsgood
@FlipYrWhig:
I shouldn’t laugh, but that was fucking funny. I still say that he thought his “seduction” would work. I live in wingnut central (Texas). This place is simply crawling with young republican activists. No matter how unattractive, they all think they’re hot stuff.
If he was able to ruin her career and embarrass CNN as well, that would just be gravy.
fourlegsgood
@General Stuck: I rather suspect that CNN might rally to protect one of their own. I rather hope so.
Then again, they might act like totally little bitches and let it go.
Martin
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
More accurate.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The frightening thing is, we are getting pretty close to the point where, with a well financed CGI farm (the Koch brothers have plenty to spare), they won’t even have to have a real video tape. They can just cook the whole thing up in a computer without leaving the office. And the wingnuts will still believe it.
JPK
Yeah after all for denizens of this kind of fever swamp the Whitey tape didn’t even have to actually exist. Existence just helps get it mainstreamed.
Martin
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Well financed? That’s cheap now. We’re not talking 2 hour high-def motion pictures. 10 seconds of grainy low-res video will do just as much damage. You can do that for nothing.
Tom Factor
According to the twitter-thingy, Brietbart is already in the “James who?” camp.
TruthorScare
To be fair, one of Erick son of Erick’s frontpagers has an unflattering post up about it on RedState. Not many comments yet — the first couple just seemed to be utterly confused about how such a wingnut hero as O’Keefe would do this, of course with overtones that somehow he is a victim here. According to another who was critical of O’Keefe: “he’s turning into the right’s very own Michael Moore.”
Davis X. Machina
Someone told them ‘power is the ultimate aphrodis1ac’, so the kind of power that you might have someday, after graduation, if everything breaks right, because you know this guy, is a sort of aphrodisiac.
About on a par with, say, dousing yourself with Axe.
AhabTRuler
@Davis X. Machina: Back in the day it was Drakkar Noir, or as I called it, “the smell of young male trying to get laid.”
Tsulagi
@Zifnab:
Probably won’t take long. No doubt the squirrel cage in his head is spinning hard and fast to come up with something. Maybe even in front of a mirror now practicing crying on cue like Beck.
Guessing he’ll go with something simple like saying he was set up by the professional left at CNN. Everyone can get behind blaming those bastards. It’s the bipartisan thing to do.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
[sigh]
You’re right. I hadn’t thought about the duration and definition factor.
The thing which truly frightens me about these people is that they aren’t simply ratfucking libs and Dems. They are at war with objective reality itself. And judging from the traction they are getting with a fair chunk of the population, they appear to be winning. I’m not sure that democracy is compatible with a fully post-modern society. There are some circa late 18th Cen. assumptions about epistemology built into our system of govt., which may be approaching their breaking point.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Maybe I have better insight into the wingnut mind, but I thought it was pretty clear what he was doing from the start.
These women are liberal media “ho’s” looking for a story. He expected that, despite the weird conditions, she’d humor him/suck up to him in hopes of getting primo info for an interview. He’d then take the tape of her humoring him, and edit it into “OMG LOOK AT THE LOOSE LIBERAL MEDIA SLUT WILLING TO DO KINKY SHIT TO GET A STORY!!1!”
John PM
Wouldn’t this qualify as attempted kidnap?
meh
the freepers are on teh case
Anoniminous
This crap is getting seriously out of hand:
AP | NJ student secretly taped having sex kills himself
Nellcote
It will be interesting to see how her doc on “young conservative activists” turns out this Sat. Hey! maybe it was all a sick publicity stunt!
Linda Featheringill
@fourlegsgood:
Used to live in Texas. The state was full of men of all ages who thought they were hot stuff.
And some of them were.
Politics are probably beside the point.
FlipYrWhig
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
I don’t know about “willing to do kinky shit.” I think the idea was to test how much harassment she’d put up with, then laugh at her when she left, then laugh at her again when she incorporated into the story the idea that she had been subjected to harassment, at which point O’Keefe would pull out the tape and say, “It was all a joke! And she totally fell for it, because she’s stoopid and was only hired for her looks!”
pragmatism
i looked up izzy santa on linkedin. worked for hispanics for school choice and hispanic CREO (i’m a west coaster and am always informed that the proper word is latino, but i digress). then bam–sam adams alliance and, wait for it, cato institute. they still couldn’t entirely crush her conscience.
Linda Featheringill
@Anoniminous:
Very sad. Don’t know if what those assholes did is illegal but it is morally wrong.
They caused the death of this young man.
Lev
Everything I’ve read about O’Keefe leads me to believe he thinks he’s a genius renegade filmmaker who’s practically unstoppable. In reality he’s a racist attention-seeker who had a few victories before screwing up badly, but he still thinks he’s a genius who can do no wrong.
MikeJ
On Free Republic they’re saying that the reporter was trying to seduce O’Keefe to get a story and he bravely tried to turn the tables on her.
Anoniminous
@Linda Featheringill:
Yup and – I predict – they will get away with it.
The cops aren’t interested in pursuing faggot bashing. It makes their willies shrink.
(I’m somewhat off the rails angry, right now.)
MattR
From one of the documents that CNN got their hands on:
I don’t think this was their ultimate goal or anything, I think it was just a fallback position. But it is still pretty amazing to read that they thought this would have traction, especially given the blonde bimbo anchors that Fox employs (male and female).
PS. Izzy Santa is a great name though it works a bit better for a boy.
Davis X. Machina
@Linda Featheringill: Oh, it’s illegal. And charges are being pressed….
I don’t think it’s exactly hard time, but it’s something, and maybe all the law allows.
fourlegsgood
@Davis X. Machina: pretty much.
they strut around like little peacocks.
Davis X. Machina
@fourlegsgood: With cocks the size of peas….
60th Street
Not that FOX hasn’t been stuffed to the rafters with fembot blondes, like Monica Crowley, Megyn Kelly, Gretchen Carlson, and E.D. “Fistjab” Hill for as long as anyone can remember. Not to mention the FOX Hooters and Spring Break Bureaus and miles and miles of tits and ass B-roll they run whenever they get the chance.
Fucking clowns!
fourlegsgood
@Linda Featheringill: sure, some of them are, but many more are boring, boorish, ridiculous rednecks that I wouldn’t piss on if they caught fire in front of me.
believe me though, the worst are the young republicans who have staffer and political jobs at the capitol.
fourlegsgood
@Davis X. Machina: can’t answer to that though I suspect that U R CORRECT, SIR!!
I imagine they’re all hung like kittens.
Lev
@MattR: Anyone else notice the fairly obvious reference to Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry?
David
❛Ignore the childish sexual aspects of this “prank” and focus on the overall goal of O’Keefe’s plan – to discredit CNN by planting a false story, then giving a “heads up to FoxNews” in order to allow Fox to “undercut” CNN. Suddenly it sounds less like a prank and more like what happened to Dan Rather with those Bush/TANG documents.❜
from a comment on TPM
El Tiburon
Furthermore, instead of the media exposing Breitbart, O’Keefe, et al for what they really are and therefore stop giving them any credibility, there debate will rage on: Is This Today’s New Journalism? Both SIdes DO It!!
They will then have Breitbart on to lay the blame on MSNBC and the lamestream media.
Serious quesition, who is the bigger enemy: The Teabaggers/Republicans or the media who enable them?
I suggest the media. Without the media, the teabaggers would not exist.
EJ
I think that O’Keefe and co. realized at the last minute that this shit doesn’t work when you pull it on well-connected white people.
So long as you stick to trying to embarrass uppity negroes the media will play along.
Walker
@Davis X. Machina:
Supposedly the worst offense (transmission) is up to 5 years prison time. It is serious enough that they set Ravi’s bail at 25k.
I can guarantee you that at the very least these students will be expelled.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Tiburon:
The media, hands down. I didn’t even have to think about it for more than 5 seconds.
The teabaggers would still exist without the media – crazy people are a permanent fixture in our politics. But they wouldn’t matter much without the media.
maus
@Tom Factor: He’s always been about the “plausible deniability” while fronting the costs for these operations. He’s not going to stop orchestrating them and the media appearances, he’s just going to say “not mine!” if they fall apart.
@fourlegsgood:
barbed?
Rock
He’s not going to become “Jame Who?”…he’ll still be a media celebrity. All he has to do is launch another incendiary attack against liberals/government/whatever and it will get covered everywhere. To ignore him and his BS would be biased.
PhoenixRising
I think the idea was to test how much harassment she’d put up with, then laugh at her when she left, then laugh at her again when she incorporated into the story the idea that she had been subjected to harassment
In my experience with asshole men who think that pretty women both deserve and benefit from being sexualized in the workplace–which unfortunately for me has been fairly extensive–you’re close.
The idea was that she would have to choose between objecting to being sexually harassed at work, and having that objection turn into her career’s epitaph, or not objecting and being humiliated and discredited for her loose morals. Regardless, the idea was to trap a pretty lady into being victimized and mocked by millions.
Either way, this story ain’t funny. Yeah, it’s funny that he thought he’d be able to convince a professional reporter in her 30s that sex with him was worth throwing away her career…but the fact that this incident is now the most visible thing that’s ever happened to her IS sexual harassment.
bemused
@MattR:
It would be a snap to convince the Fox zombies and that’s all that matters.
FlipYrWhig
@PhoenixRising:
Well said — I think I was struggling to articulate that (sensible and sad) point all day.
Steve M.
Since I started this over at my blog, I’ll post the reply I posted there: are we to assume that Boudreau wouldn’t obtain her own video? And that she and CNN wouldn’t rebut this instantly, if not preemptively (i.e., possibly as soon as she got off the boat, concluding it was a bizarre story about a controversial guy that shouldn’t wait to be told)? Isn’t this a Shirley Sherrod situation in the making, except with no rebuttal delay?
Ripley
CNN, meh. O’Keefe, ugh. Please – won’t someone look out for America’s dildos?
MikeJ
@Steve M.: Let’s not get into who killed who.
Her video would carry as much weight as Obama’s birth certificate.
WereBear
I sometimes wonder if we haven’t created a monster; in the space of a century, we have grown used to exposing homo sapiens sapiens to more imagination fuel in one day than a medieval serf might have gotten in a year. We pour music into our emotional centers all day long when it took quite a long time to invent the hollow log drum.
After growing up watching television, and wishing they lived with the Brady Bunch, perhaps a lot of people have loosed their moorings, and live in their own heads.
Mark S.
@Steve M.:
I don’t get that. This was supposed to be some meeting in O’Keefe’s office to discuss letting CNN film the jackass while he made some music video. Boudreau was alone and didn’t have any cameras.
Davis X. Machina
@WereBear:
They’d tell you objective reality, like Han Solo, shot first, and did some real damage in the process. So they’re just retaliating….
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina:
I don’t know man. That felt like an Omnes Omnibus come back line.
Just sayin’.
General JAFO Willibro
Precisely correct. Best analysis you’ve done all week, JC.
Winston Smith
Just checked out the Freepers. Most of them think O’Keefe is an idiot who will never regain his initial glory. One commenter even noted that O’Keefe’s stardom was helped by “skillful editors and FNC.”
One Freeper did comment that Abbie “would have gotten on the boat if she wasn’t tipped off.” I think the implication is that the plan was successful in an alternate universe where she wasn’t tipped off which is pretty much the same thing as it being successful. We’ll have to see if that one takes hold.
Most of the Freepers think Hanna Giles (fake prostitute) was the real star. None of them realize that ACORN was guilty of no wrongdoing, even though its in the article. Much griping about how CNN ignored the ACORN story.
One commenter noted that Abbie is a distinguished reporter with a sterling background, and that O’Keefe’s assumption that she would behave like a stupid bimbo is incredibly offensive.
My prediction: a week from now, no one at Freeperland will remember having these opinions. Either they will have forgotten the story or they will have a desirable narrative to parrot.
mantis
Notice anything missing? Like a near complete absence of right wing websites discussing this? They’ll just pretend it never happened, and probably get away with it. Their superstar from last year’s Acorn smears will quickly become “James who?”
Yep. Joe the Who? Who Prejean?
Far as I can tell, no one from the right other than, to his credit (I guess), Brent Bozell, who unequivocally denounced O’Keefe. The rest are dead silent.
Winston Smith
@MikeJ:
Whoa. That’s way better than what I found. Link?
I searched for postings with “Punk” in the title.
MikeJ
@Winston Smith: I quote from the thread:
Comment 10 from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2598409/posts
maus
@Winston Smith:
They’re also stupid enough to still believe that O’Keefe dressed up in the pimp suit for the interview.
@WereBear:
Oh please, this isn’t about fantasy, this is about warping reality. It was never about the idyllic 50s life but redefining objective truth to meet their needs.
driftglass
That simple, and that utterly, utterly predictable.
Dr. Psycho
I’m thinking it is at least possible that the reason Izzy Santa blew the whistle (if you’ll pardon the expression) is that O’Keefe let slip that he planned to use her as a body double when they reshot parts of the bungled seduction.
woody
As with all proper propaganda, all it has to be is “OUT THERE!”
quaint irene
And what I’m REALLY hoping is this guy gets it for violating parole.
kommrade reproductive vigor
You are so right.
So far I’ve seen Breitfart threaten to sue Oliver Willis for libel because he referred to O’Keefe as one of his crew in a Tweet and this, courtesy of Mrs. Polly at Rumproast:
I bet Pete Olson is trying to figure out to burn every copy of his little love letter to Giles & O’Keefe:
But hey only 30 members* of Congress signed on to this so because shut up, that’s why.
*No offense to dicks.
Chris
Now, now, I think a lot of stuff’s been blown out of proportion, a lot of people on both sides have said things they maybe wouldn’t have said if they’d really had time to think first, and I think we can take this opportunity to expand the national conversation.
I speak, of course, of the inevitable: We need a “dildo summit.”
(inspired, of course, by the “beer summit”)
sherparick
@MattR: Just imagining the interviews O’Keefe would have with Gretchen on this story gives me a prurient thrill. By the way, that is one thing that that might give this story leg, the sex angle, since all the cable infotainment is about getting eyeballs on their shows.
sherparick
@MattR: Just imagining the interviews O’Keefe would have with Gretchen on this story gives me a prurient thrill. By the way, that is one thing that that might give this story leg, the sex angle, since all the cable infotainment is about getting eyeballs on their shows.
Winston Smith
@MikeJ:
Thanks. I actually read most of that comment, but I was skimming through them and just picked up on the part about the commenter thinking O’Keefe was “a maroon.”
I think this guy was misinterpreting what O’Keefe was trying to show: that CNN uses sexy reporters to lure people into stories.
LiberalTarian
@Mark S.: Hm. That spelling looks wrong. I think it’s dildos. >:-)
JWL
“When you make up your own reality and have a media that refuses to call you on your bullshit, the sky is the limit”.
Let’s take it chronologically:
When a political party acquiesces in unleashing a war based on Big Lies, and then proceeds to act as if nothing was ever fundamentally amiss (in alliance with America’s corporate media)… well, that’s one big enchilada of a reality skewered muddle, too.
Or am I mistaken?
LiberalTarian
@fourlegsgood: Yeah, that guy is really really fugly. Why he thought she was going to be anything but repulsed is beyond me. He was betting she was going to be a good liberal, and try not to hurt his feelings. It would have been worth it if she’d gone Buffy the Vampire Slayer on his ass, and knocked his ass off the boat with a good swift kick to the butt-ocks.
Church Lady
Ace of Spades has a post up.
celticdragonchick
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Best comment of the day.
Mark S.
@LiberalTarian:
I don’t know if this is very authoritative, but this guy says either is acceptable.
And shit, I read The Winter’s Tale in college and I don’t remember this at all.
Mark S.
@Church Lady:
Oh goody.
asiangrrlMN
@LiberalTarian: Dildi. And yes, I made that up.
@Anoniminous: This story is breaking my heart and infuriating me at the same time. I hope those fuckers rot in their own moral hell.
@PhoenixRising: Sadly, I agree with you. From now on, she’s best going to be known as the CNN reporter O’Keefe tried to…whatever. I refuse to say punk because that diminishes what he tried to do.
thomas
I am confident that despite this temporary setback O’Keefe will still find a way to disprove the liberal media fiction that not all women are sluts.
Bold prediction: this experience will not at all deter CNN from being suckered by the next Brietbart-like smear that the right-wing media hypes.
VladCar
John, I’ve seen this many times. They won’t say anything until the talking points “come down from the mount”. Once Fox, Rush, Beck, Palin, or one of the other biggies pick a side, then they will be out in force to either support or condemn – as ordered.
That is why it is important to hit them hard and fast when this kind of thing comes out. They can never react fast enough on their own and you only have a short time to deliver the beat-down.
JWL
The people of the United States were victims of a traitorous plot by the republican party in 2003, and war was unleashed upon Iraq.
The democratic party collaborated in that treason.
Or am I mistaken?
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
From the Watergate Hotel to “the dildo boat” in just a few decades. If this episode counts as a probation violation (after the wiretapping incident), after the short stay in the big house it’ll be on to Fox News and talk radio. Teabagger Nation has its own G. Gordon Liddy, and the downward spiral of the right wing can maintain its symmetry.
Viva BrisVegas
This kid has hit on a good gig if he can afford a boat big enough to do whatever the hell it was he planned to do with that reporter.
But the obvious point has yet to be made, has anybody checked what’s in the freezer on that boat?
Mal Carne
Look to “Borat” to get an idea of what this kid thought he could accomplish. All kinds of people will endure awkward or ugly social situations and follow the script in their heads of how normal, sane people act in the face of incredible stupidity and/or ugliness, because as social animals we naturally try get along.
“Borat” made a movie of it; O’Keefe pretty much brought down ACORN because of it. And if he managed to lure this reporter onto the boat, he might have gotten 30 seconds or so of usuable footage as she attempted to parse the lunacy. That’s all he would have needed; one hack editing job later and her career is over.
Gus
As long as it means the end of this punk’s “career” I don’t mind that much.
John Lally
James O’Keefe didn’t become “James Who?” after the Acorn story blew up on him. He didn’t become “James Who?” after Sen. Landreieu’s “phone guy” debacle. What makes you think that this guy is just going to go away? He’ll keep coming back.
Paul L.
I wondering why can’t progressives and Media Matters do something like Factcheck did debunking the Alan Grayson video with the “edited” Acorn” videos?
Of course true believers like John C. still defend Alan Grayson when the “unedited” video says the exact opposite.
Christan bigots like John don’t understand the Bible says a wife should submit to her husband of her own free will.
John Hoffman
If you are still getting your news and opinions from the Glass Teat, you deserve to be stupid and ill-informed. Sometimes I catch Kieth and Rachel, or Jon and Stephen; but I give Sunday Morning and the Evening News a pass.
d. john
@Davis X. Machina:
Kinda burnishes the prestige of a Rutger’s education, at least.
Let’s hope the incident gets lots of play.
d. john
@Paul L.:
Way to change the subject. Assuming what you said is true – O’Keefe’s reputation as a slimeball is something Greyson couldn’t match if he were trying. He just doesn’t have that kind of time
Plus, your argument was just a deflection.
You fail.
d. john
@John Hoffman:
AFAIAC Maddow, Olbermann and O’Reilly probably carpool. It’s partisan opinion dressed up with enough hyperbole to be entertaining.
There’s no such thing as convenient news in this country anymore. Cable-TV is the worst offender, but our entire traditional 4th estate is being eroded by consolidation and the horse-trading of good investigative journalism for access and entertainment.
Check your news with google and international sources. To do otherwise is to be misinformed. The easiest way to start is to cancel your cable-subscription. As painful as it is, it’s the most reliable way to limit all the mental pollution you are exposing yourself to… If you must watch TV, you *could* learn spanish and get the dish (univision, et al) – they have those ummm thingies — ummm – you know – “reporters”, yeah – that’s it. Reporters, and journalism, and all that neat stuff. It’s really quite cool.
just sayin’
Finn
It’s amazing that the ACORN unedited footage got almost no coverage. It was on Maddow, and, uh, that is it. No blog posts, no CNN pieces, just a summary about the findings of the attorney general. There were thousands upon thousands of outraged talking heads and bloggers over the original scandal. The reveal that it was all bullshit? NOT A MENTION.
You can watch all the footage yourself here: http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/multimedia/index.php
Someone SHOULD do a nice one to one comparison between the claims that O’Keefe made about the vidoes and the raw footage. And make it short and punchy so it can get some youtube traction.
It’s so incredibly obvious in the unedited version how much O’Keefe blatantly lied. He explains himself as a law student trying to help this girl get away away from an abusive pimp — he doesn’t say that he is the pimp! The ACORN people respond with compassion, and the famous ‘quotes’ have an entirely different meaning with the full context. The headline is ‘ACORN SHOWS HOW TO HIDE MONEY FROM GOVERNMENT’, and the real context is that he says her pimp steals all her money and she can’t get away. Amazing.
And yet those employees were all fired.
I recommend everyone download and watch the raw videos. An entire organization was destroyed over outrage with nobody bothering to check the facts.
Peter Hoh
I’ll give you a right-wing blog that’s discussed this:
James O’Keefe is officially yesterday’s favorite conservative pseudo-pundit, after cooking up a stunt too stupid even for Michael Moore.
http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp/?p=13926
paradoctor
I feel most for Izzy Santa, who showed courage and compassion, and must now face the wrath of the thuggish Mr. O’Keefe. It is a grave misfortune to have an evil companion.
Walt Forest
When it comes to the wing-nut decalogue, adherents are not expected to analyze, think, or even understand. Good right-wingers are only expected to agree.