Not to step on Anne’s post on the same thing, but you really need to read the unabomber manifesto that Don Juan Dildo and the Love Boat Crew were following to realize how crazy our wingnuts are these days. They honestly thought this planned sexual assault was going to expose the “racism against white people at CNN.”
And stop calling this a prank. WHat they wanted to do to this woman was much darker than a prank. If someone took one of my sisters onto a boat under false pretenses, filmed them without their knowledge, and deliberately sexually harassed them with the intent to intimidate or have sex with them or both, I’d probably be in jail right now.
Original Lee
I agree with you – this was totally not a prank. I guess this just goes to show liberals don’t have a sense of humor.
beltane
Thank you so much for telling people to stop calling this a prank. A prank implies that a reasonable person could find this amusing. If someone finds this planned assault to be even remotely amusing, they should probably seek some form of counseling.
brendancalling
seriously, and I don’t even LIKE my sister.
One of these days, O’Keefe is going to wind up found in a series of dumpsters throughout the DC tri-state area.
Emma (From FL)
If CNN had the gonads Gawd gave a hamster, they would file a police report on this guy. But they won’t. I guess the lesson a female CNN reporter should take away from this is that she better be armed and ready to protect herself from the crazies, because her network sure as Christmas won’t.
brantl
I wish someone would film an interview with the intended victim’s mom/dad, or both. Have both of them mention that there would be serious consequences to Mr. Okeefe’s action. They could also say that their daughter had much better taste than to associate with the likes of Mr. Okeefe.
beltane
I wonder why the brave Mr. O’Keefe has never gone after beefed-up white men.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: It is a prank in the same way that n-word jokes are jokes. The structure is similar, but any laughter it generates comes from cruelty not humor.
Cat Lady
Could this be the “have you no shame” moment to break the spell the right wing wurlitzer has over the MSM after 30 years of them working the refs? Their going to let this creepy ass clown and his racist paymasters be their new assignment editor? Really? Andy Alexander, a nation turns its jaundiced eyes to you.
Bobby Thomson
This is the part that has baffled me from the get. It suggests there’s a lot that isn’t written down in the plan, and makes me wonder if the “plan” was itself a TANG letter, but that some other piece of this Rube Goldberg puzzle didn’t work.
beltane
@Emma (From FL): I know of someone who had to face criminal assault charges after grabbing a Fox New’s reporter’s microphone and yelling “Fox Sucks!”. It would seem that CNN doesn’t protect their own in that way, at least not when their reporters are assaulted by members of the RWNM.
New Yorker
Why isn’t this guy in jail yet?
Rosalita
and, as far as I can tell, only crickets coming from the wingnut blogs over this
Corner Stone
Hey Cole. Not to go O/T on you but I was thinking of your recent PayPal episode. Seems they have instituted a system wide “theft” attempt. Basically shutting down random accounts for false/unclear reasons and forcing the owner to work to get their money back.
How PayPal screws open source projects
After several e-mails:
HT through Corrente
Amir_Khalid
@brendancalling: I’ve been wondering that too. This looks like an attempt at rape or blackmail or both. Why isn’t it a police matter already?
Dennis SGMM
@beltane:
Because he’d need a rectal cameraectomy afterwards?
rumpole
I’m with you on “seduction.” On what planet do you have to be to think that inviting a woman over on a professional basis constitutes any sort of chance that a sex toy would be a welcome conversation-starter? Seriously, has this guy ever been laid?*
Note to Mr. O’Keefe: That guy in the movie that you watched last night really wasn’t a pizza delivery guy. And the lady that had “nothing to pay him with” probably makes more money than he does.
*For free, that is.
General Stuck
Well, it certainly wasn’t a prank, I would call it more surreal in a dark and intensely stupid and pathological
way. My brain has not fully wrapped around it yet, hence the initial snark.
And luring a woman onto a boat under false pretense for whatever this psychopathic jackal was wanting, seems quite illegal to me, if only at the conspiracy stage. If it isn’t illegal, sure as shit ought to be.
Dave
This was way, way WAY beyond a prank.
@Cat Lady:
No it won’t. I think the right-wing is so far past any point of return now. Their mentality is simple: when dealing with “the enemy”, nothing is out of bounds. Remember that, and everything they do makes sense. Standards and boundaries apply only to people who deserve their protection. And to them, the reporter wasn’t one of those people.
The GOP is now a party of sociopaths. And the MSM still won’t call them on it out of a sense of “fairness”. Jesus wept…
jrg
If CNN correspondents exercised their second amendment rights, we wouldn’t be having this discussion… So it’s still all the librul’s fault, when you get down to it.
Violet
@Cat Lady:
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
wipes eyes
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
I so wish you were right. But peak wingnut is never, ever going to come. It’s nothing but a dream. The media has one agenda: they want to stay rich. They aren’t being worked by the refs; they’re working in their own self-interest.
Mudge
Remember, Republican comedians and comics aren’t funny either. Their concept of what is appropriate borders on the insane.
Scratchie
Not to give these douchebags too much benefit of the doubt, but I just can’t believe that this is on the level. Documenting their “CNN Caper” in this way is a little too much like the bad guy leaving a notebook labeled “My Evil Plan” in his desk drawer. It seems to me like this must have been some kind of a double-fake-out, or SOMETHING, because I’m having trouble getting my head around the idea that anyone could be stupid enough to think this plan would work. There’s got to be more than this than what has been reported so far, because I can’t believe that someone smart enough to come up with that ACORN caper (which was smart, if evil) would be stupid enough to think that a CNN reporter would fall for this shit. There has to be more going on here.
Remember November
Wouldn’t something like this violate his probation? I mean, even as a misdemeanor, the whole point of probation is to keep your head down and your nose clean.
Remember November
@Scratchie:
Not if they believed that what they were doing had any merit. It’s not like they are Phd’s in reasoning and logic. You give them too much credit.
Kryptik
Regardless of the real planned end game, whether it was actual sexual assault or simply implying something dark and unseemly about Bourdreau in ways that would ruin her career and CNN’s credibility (what little of it left), this was definitely way beyond a prank. This doesn’t even need to go into to ventures of O’Keefe possibly planning a real assault all along to be totally sociopathic and outright terrifying, even if not quite on a visceral level as if he really was planning on attacking Bourdreau.
I mean, at MINIMUM, he was aiming to shame her as a slut, try and taint her credibility as being loose and willing to do anything to ‘fake’ a story, and then impugning that impression on the whole of CNN for reasons only wingnuts understand. That’s at minimum. When you start from the floor with that, you don’t NEED to even go into the worst case scenarios to realize this was beyond ‘prank’.
Upper West
Remember — This is the same creep who got Chuck. Schumer and all but 7 Dems (thank you Sen. Gillenbrand) to unconstitutionally vote to de-fund ACORN.
There is a sickness in the land when these sociopaths are not laughed out of existence or locked up.
Martin
@Emma (From FL): Actually, if CNN had any brains, they’d turn the whole manifesto into an hourlong special and recurring series. This is ratings gold here, and would do vastly more damage to the RWNM if they were willing to fully kick that box open than a police report would.
Southern Beale
Yes, my thought exactly. I read their plan and realized these folks see themselves as resistance fighters in a real war — a war against the evil liberal usurpers, liberalism, the forces of darkness, whatever. It’s very immature, it’s rooted in Red Dawn and too much cable TV and too many video games and fantasies of greatness that they will never ever achieve. And that in itself, I believe, comes from the fact that they lost the culture wars and they will always be culturally marginalized no matter HOW many political wins the Republican Party scores. Because for 8 years they had George W. Bush as president who was the embodiment of all they believed and hoped for and he was an utter complete failure to the point where even they must distance themselves from him.
They have been completely marginalized by the culture. The fault lies not in their politics, of course, but in the vast left wing conspiracy that is so truly evil it must be taken down, and THEY are the heroes to do it!
It’s Wingnut Fantasyland. Someone should make the video game ….
Kryptik
@Scratchie:
I wouldn’t even say the ACORN hitjob was smart. The fact is, if we had any sort of functioning media that actually did their goddamn jobs, he would’ve been laughed off the stage and relegated to public toilet peep cams.
If it wasn’t for Santa, and Bourdreau being smart enough to not let her get drawn into something with obvious flags going off, I could guarantee you that the media would be shitfaced dumb enough to run with it wholesale.
JCT
Damn, “Don Juan Dildo” , I need a new monitor.
It isn’t funny in the least and I am pretty pissed at CNN about just taking a pass on this. Can you imagine if they had gone through with this and Abbie found herself in this situation? Jesus.
But it’s depressing because you know this would be instantly turned into a “can’t you take a joke” moment.
This sort of disparity in response coupled to the mounting evidence that the Republicans are raking in enormous sums of money from lobbyists to buy back Congress (or what is left of that sorry sack of nonsense that passes for our legislative branch) — it really is getting kind of frightening.
zzyzx
John – even though I read you back then, I’m having a lot of trouble imagining you as a conservative these days…
MikeJ
I simply can’t believe the argument that soime seem to be making, paraphrased as, “they can’t be *that* stupid.”
Really? You don’t think that’s possible?
JPL
@brantl: The right would want to know whether or not they have granite counter tops.
Martin
@Scratchie:
These dipshits worked their way into a sitting senators office with the intention of tapping her phone. Yes, they really are that stupid. This is their career now. This is how they intend to get through life. They’re the ‘Jackass’ crew of politics, and if someone has to stick lit firecrackers in their ass to advance the agenda, they’ve already agreed to be the ones to do it.
The ACORN scam was only smart because the FBI didn’t catch up to them before they got the whole thing on the air and politicized it.d
Martin
@Scratchie:
These dipshits worked their way into a sitting senators office with the intention of tapping her phone. Yes, they really are that stupid. This is their career now. This is how they intend to get through life. They’re the ‘Jackass’ crew of politics, and if someone has to stick lit firecrackers in their ass to advance the agenda, they’ve already agreed to be the ones to do it.
The ACORN scam was only smart because the FBI didn’t catch up to them before they got the whole thing on the air and politicized it.
Cat Lady
@Violet:
I don’t know. Peak wingnut will never come, but legitimizing the fever dreams of the crazy 27% of the population by chasing them through the sewer doesn’t sound like a very good business plan for any news station not named Fox. But what do I know. I stopped watching news right after Obama got inaugurated because of teh stoopid.
El Tiburon
Also. Too. This.
But remember: Fox News now has Helen Thomas’s front row seat with the blessing of the rest of the Katzenjammer Kids.
And what Fox News does on a daily basis is no different in its intentions towards their victims, just no so brazenly stupid and misogynistic.
El Tiburon
@Cat Lady:
Ah, yes in the land of cotton candy clouds and Choco-fudge mountains.
Remember, according to Kurtz, et al, both sides practice this type of ‘gotcha’ journalism. What O’Keefe planned to do was no worse than Katie Couric’s horrendous assault on Sarah Palin’s reading habits.
Zifnab
Oh, but it would be better than that.
Because whatever knee-jerk violence you wanted to engage in wouldn’t even need to happen. The wingers would have authorities halfway up your ass because of a suspicion that you might try to extract vengeance.
That’s how this game works. I punch you because you somehow deserved it. Then you get in trouble because you might punch me back. I remain the perpetual victim.
AnnaN
O’Keefe’s actions have nothing whatsoever to do with stupidity, but seem more along the lines of what I suspect is a narcissistic personality disorder. The fact that he has received adulation for previous false “gotcha”s only reinforces in his mind that whatever he does is rational and par for the course. He doesn’t see his actions or reasoning to be incoherent because he is unable to – his personality is getting in the way.
He’ll get into really big legal trouble one day; it’s just a shame that day isn’t now.
jimBOB
Why do these bozos do this stuff? Because 1. It worked once (ACORN is no more and they made their wingnut bones) and 2. they haven’t been sent to jail yet.
The utter stupidity on display isn’t surprising or even unexpected; how smart was it to try to sneak surveillance equipment into a US senator’s office?
How long will they keep at it? Well, Drudge, who so far as I know has not had a genuine scoop since Monica, is still plugging away. OTOH O’Keefe’s oeuvre seems to involve the pretense of cloak and dagger guile, but the man is too stupid to get that to succeed very often. I imagine he will either grind down to obscurity or blow himself up in something spectacularly criminal and stupid, ending in jail time.
Earl Butz
@Cat Lady: Not hardly. 100 years of rape didn’t break the spell of the Confederacy and Jim Crow; it took a concerted effort by law enforcement to do it – an effort, due to the lack of a totalitarian ruler like J. Edgar Hoover, that’s not possible in today’s society.
Law enforcement so far has been treating the teatards with kid gloves. No charges for death threats, etc. That’s going to have to change if their behavior is going to be made to change.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Scratchie: This is the thing about conspiracies. We oftentimes overestimate the intelligence and savvy of our opponents, for a host of reasons. But, in reality, like with Nixon/the Plumbers, they really are Just That Stupid and Arrogant.
I’m sure they were dead serious. And I agree, so NOT a prank. A serious indication of the sickness in this group’s thoughts and actions, just like the “Pimp” thing was.
numbskull
@Kryptik: Absolute best analysis of this I’ve read in two days. I wish I could think and write this clearly.
John PM
As I said in a thread yesterday about this caper, it sounds like attempted kidnapping. Presumably if the reporter had gotten on the boat, O’Keffe would have taken the boat out on the lake and not returned to shore until he had done something. I think this would also qualify as attempted sexual assault.
In response to the person who compared these yahoos to the Jackass people, I think that is an insult to Jackass. Johnny Knoxville and friends are only hurting themselves. O’Keffe and his criminal gang of misfits are hurting other people; they do not have the balls to actually do something that might injure themselves.
Finally, I am with Cole on this. If I heard that someone did something like this to any woman I know, that ass would experience a “Mystic River” ending.
jwb
@Dave: “And the MSM still won’t call them on it out of a sense of “fairness”.”
Yes, it’s not about fairness and never has been. It’s about money and political power and always has been.
soonergrunt
@beltane: Funny, cause I don’t wonder about that at all.
Jay
I appreciate the brotherly anger of your last paragraph, John. I could be wrong, but I think your old soldier’s voice was there as well.
Maude
@Kryptik: #25
I wonder if it was going to evolve into kidnapping.
There is something so hinky here. I also think there is an element to this that we haven’t found out about.
jwb
@Scratchie: Actually, the Acorn caper wasn’t that smart, it’s just that people weren’t fast enough at putting the pieces together, at least in part because it was so brazen. But if you were paying attention it was clear from very early on that the fix was in. Not that that made any more difference here than with the lead up to the Iraq war.
Kryptik
@Maude:
Maybe, maybe not. But like I said, it doesn’t even need to go into that territory to make this a truly horrendous plan.
Jeff
not that it’s a contest or any thing but AL s thread is winning
celticdragonchick
@brendancalling:
As I have said before: In an earlier and possibly more civilized time (in some respects), O’Keefe would be called out at dawn with a second of his choice to respond for this with either swords or pistols. I have no doubt that in the 1780’s, this socially undeveloped idiot would be dead and unlamented on a grassy field somewhere with a .68 calibre hole through his chest.
Mr. Nobody
CNN Posted excerpts from the document laying out the “prank”
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/09/specials/cnn.caper/index.html
In the document they list a few of the potential ‘big lies’ regarding CNN.
2) Their own internal racism against whites
3) Their potential racism against minorities
Boy these CNN people just hate everyone… including themselves apparently. Then again I’d probably hate myself if I were Wolf Blitzer.
eemom
hmmm…….there’s gotta be a “John Cole is a Misogynist” post in here SOMEWHERE.
/Jane
jwb
@Cat Lady: Well, this is the big problem: I think a lot of people have stopped paying attention to the media. My folks have, and they used to have cable news on 24/7. But the problem is that as the general audience declines, it just concentrates the crazy. That 27% watches a lot more TV news than the rest of us.
Carnacki
My theory is he would have edited in scenes of him having sex with another woman and then claimed it was the CNN reporter, using the footage of her on the boat and then making certain her face wasn’t scene during the sex scenes.
I base this off the past history of heavy edits and revisions used by O’Keefe and Breitbart to smear their subjects.
celticdragonchick
@jrg:
If she had gotten on that boat and saw what he had planned, I tend to think she would have had sufficient grounds to use deadly force out of justifiable fear for her safety.
soonergrunt
@celticdragonchick:
Yup.
Mrs. Polly
The Acorn “sting” wasn’t smart; the media were eager to buy it, and politicians like Schumer too timorous to do what was right; it was a lucky hit. Nothing much else has worked for “Veritas.”
The script may have been thought of by its writer(s) as a hokey parody of CNN’s preconceptions of them, but the amount of hatred and projection oozing out of it mark it as coming from a garden variety stalker: “Abbie’s been trying to seduce me….”
Any stalking victim will recognize the tone.
Xenos
@soonergrunt: And earlier in time, an Acheulian hand-ax would have done the trick nicely.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Agreed. They were trying to re-enact every straight to video Nerdy Doods Get Revenge on Hawt Chick Who Ignored Them movie ever filmed.
However, I just love the fact that O’Keefe is trying to blame a guy named Wetmore (also a fellow convict) for “The Script.” That’ll be appropriate when his parole officer starts showing up unannounced.
Brachiator
@Cat Lady:
Sadly, no. I agree big time with John Cole that this goes far beyond anything that could be called a prank, but a segment of the right has become completely unhinged. This hard core of crazies simply are incapable of any self-restraint. Worse, their enablers, the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Becks, refuse to back down, refuse to temper their defense of the indefensible.
If you ask these people, “Have you no shame?” the response would be, “What’s shame?”
As for the rest of the media, their edgy, cynical reaction will always be, “Oh, well, that little scandal didn’t pan out. What else have we got? Possible Tiger Woods sex tape? Juicy!”
geg6
@Mrs. Polly:
Word. That’s what made me squirm right from the start. A sicko stalker. And we all know what kind of “pranks” stalkers play.
And Mr. Cole, you are truly a wonderful man and brother and your sisters, hopefully, appreciate you.
Bubblegum Tate
Has Andy Breitbart explained how this is all the LIEbrul media’s fault yet?
lurkergirl
I was under the impression that the ultimate goal of this warped and sociopathic scheme was to warn off any other reporters from trying to expose the twisted little world O’Keefe and his fellow rightard trogs inhabit. Abby Boudreau was working on a documentary about conservative “guerilla journalists” – so they were going to show her what happens to uppity women journalists who try to cross them.
It’s telling that it took another woman to realize how sick the idea was and warn Boudreau what she’d be walking into. O’Keefe obviously has no clue how sane people would regard what he was planning. Putting the cartoony Ladies Man elements of the scenario aside, there is something extremely ugly beneath it. And it looks like CNN still doesn’t see this either, or they’d be hitting back a lot harder.
BGinCHI
Is there a “three strikes” rule that applies to O’Keefe?
He needs to spend some time in the concrete Hilton.
kommrade reproductive vigor
A question – Does anyone know where this boat was docked? I assumed somewhere along the Potomac (or Anacostia) but someone upthread mentioned a lake.
Well there’s already the taped phone call which, if made in Maryland, was illegal. It may just come down to how easily un-amused his parole officer is. If PO is a woman or has sisters O’Keefe and Wetmore may already be FUBAR.
Scratchie
I think the ACORN scam was smart because they knew that the corporate media was braindead enough to take their story at face value.
With this thing, though, I can’t figure out what they were attempting to accomplish. Even if they were stupid. Even if they were arrogant. I can’t figure out what was supposed to happen once the CNN reporter walked onto the boat and saw all the sex stuff. Maybe someone can connect the dots for me, but I can’t figure out what concrete goals they hoped to achieve, even hypothetically.
That, and the fact that they allowed their “MY EVIL PLAN” notebook to get into CNN’s hands, is what makes me suspect that there’s a second layer of grift going on here.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Mudge: At Target I saw two political birthday cards, one for liberals and one for conservatives.
The liberal one had a picture of Palin on the front and said “Sarah Palin has a message for you.” On the inside it had a picture of a female hand with the words “Happy Birthday” written on it.
The conservative one had a birthday cake on the front and the words “Happy Birthday” on it. Inside it said “Enjoy it before liberals try to divide it up and give it to people who don’t have a birthday today.”
Even their birthday cards portray that the world is out to get them.
Michael Goetz
Off-topic here, but I love this quote from film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum:
“The reason why I’ve sworn off television, at least for the time being, is my own rage and disgust about the way that American television now caters to and encourages everybody’s rage and disgust about the state of the nation, whether this happens to be the Fox News version or the MSNBC version (the Fox News of the left), so that back in Chicago, even my respect for Rachel Maddow was getting tested nightly whenever she wound up with many of the same talking points as Keith Olbermann (or as Bill O’Reilly, for that matter). ”
Ayup.
WereBear
Well, when you’re a jerk, that’s a pretty accurate assumption. Where they go wrong is figuring out why the world is out to get them.
Bella Q
Indeed, anyone with any experience with sociopaths and stalkers recognizes the tone here, and it is dark. We must vehemently remind everyone, at every opportunity, that this was not a planned “prank,” but a planned assault. To fail to do so will only serve to legitimize the objectification of women that is evident here, and it leads to violence.
I recognize that my tone is shrill, but this situation has no humor and should be taken more seriously than it has been thus far.
The Republic of Stupidity
I think somebody just earned themselves a special “Lifetime Darwin Award” w/ this one…
Chyron HR
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
1) Wow, their parties must be a hoot.
2) Now we know why so many of them are too fat to move around under their own power.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Scratchie:
And what would that deeper, hidden intent be… to make people think they’re so colossally stupid they MUST BE victims… of SOMETHING… ANYTHING… ?
gbear
@BGinCHI:
Maybe not ‘three strikes’, but he IS on three years probation for the stunt he pulled at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. I don’t see why this wouldn’t be a violation of his probation. The asshole has a lot of nerve. Let’s hope that his parole officer has a short fuse.
geg6
@Bubblegum Tate:
Heh.
Take a walk on over to Tbogg’s place to see how ol’ Andy is handling his protoge’s newest splash in the media.
danimal
Nope, it’s not more complicated than it seems. Just stupid. Remember, you can edit an armistice to look like a declaration of war and you can make an attempted kidnapping look like a seduction if you get enough footage.
Maybe we can neutralize O’Keefe by getting him some real ‘action’. The boy seems a bit, um, frustrated. Someone call Vitter’s office and get a referral.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Chyron HR:
And feel no shame about letting Medicare pay for their transpo to boot…
NobodySpecial
@Michael Goetz: I would love to know what talking points Rachel Maddow shared with Bill O’Reilly.
Otherwise, it’s just another tiresome ‘both sides do it too!’, which denotes a lack of critical thinking.
The Republic of Stupidity
@danimal:
Oh, screw that… someone call Carl Paladino’s office and get a referral…
geg6
@Michael Goetz:
Oh, yeah. I always love me some “both sides do it!” journimalism.
Poopyman
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Yesterday’s CNN article described it as “on a tributary of the Patuxent River” and as being in Lusby, which is fairly close to Chez Poopy. As I mentioned yesterday, I don’t think this will go anywhere until CNN uses that big megaphone of theirs.
I actually find their relative silence on this rather interesting. It could be that they’re incorporating it into their upcoming program, but they might also be quietly laying a legal groundwork for an ironclad case against Don Juan Dildo. I hope it’s the latter, but more likely the former. Although it’s most likely that they’re trying to make it quietly go away.
BTW, the general assumption is that O’Keefe was in MD when he recorded the phone call, but I’ve seen no evidence of this. Why would he be here? It’s over 90 minutes from Lusby to downtown DC where the Veritas project’s office is.
Bob L
@Bella Q: No your quite right. If he just wanted to a Daily Show style mock interview he would have needed a lot less, do a normal interview and just edit in scenes of him screwing another (willing) woman dressed as the reporter to make his point CNN was using sex to get him to talk. O’Keefe the frat boy wanted to see if he could film himself committing rape and get away with it.
The Republic of Stupidity
@geg6:
Sheesh… that’s funny… but is it a splash… or a splat?
Let me provide a link to that…
Bubblegum Tate
@geg6:
Hahaha! That’s pretty fantastic. From hetero life mate to “I’ll sue you if you say that he and I are at all connected” overnight.
The Republic of Stupidity
I dunno… at this point, ‘the intent to intimidate’ would seem to BE Don Juan’s version of ‘having sex’…
Martin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Its funny that they have that card. My mom gently pokes me about my atheism, not that she’s anything more than the lightest-weight Christian out there, and I took her to Christmas mass a few years ago and we’re there doing the whole thing having a good time, and she asked me why I was enjoying a religious service (it was a U/U mass, so it wasn’t that religious).
I thought about it for a few minutes and told her that when I go to a friends birthday party, I don’t refuse to sing to them because it’s not my birthday. I don’t refuse to eat cake, and play the games. Nobody goes to a birthday party and just because they’re eating cake, they mistake it for their birthday. You go and you do those things to celebrate their day, and I can go and celebrate Christmas for the people around me that see it as an important day (beyond its cultural value).
What’s interesting about the card is that the whole point of a birthday party is to give cake to the people who aren’t having birthdays. They’re called your guests, you greedy fuckers. Of course, they would completely miss that rather important detail in the service of a joke against liberals. Jesus, what a depraved mindset these people have sometimes.
300baud
@Brachiator:
If only. With that answer, I’d feel like I’d have a starting point. Instead, I think I’d get, “Shame? Shame is what those lie-brul dimmocrats have none of, them and their socialist Kenyan tribesman plots to destroy the America they have stolen from Real Americans like me so they can give welfare checks to strapping black bucks for their Cadillacs.”
The problem isn’t purely the moral deficiency of a few with no shame. Those people have always been with us, and until we have better diagnosis and treatment, they always will. No, the problem is the incredible structure of self-reinforcing idiocy that keeps millions so hopped up on feelings of rage and betrayal that they can’t see straight.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Martin:
The last few years I have REPEATEDLY seen “Because it pisses off liberals” offered as a rationale for all kinds of obnoxious behavior… dozens of times… it really makes you wonder… is the current conservative/Republican/Tea Party movement simply made up of hundreds of thousands and millions of now-adult little brothers who feel big enough to act out w/ impunity endlessly?
WTF?
Montysano
And yet on last week’s Real Time w/Bill Maher, there sat Breitbart, hectoring and shouting down Ann Druyan. I guess Breitbart draws eyeballs to teh teevee, but really: et tu, Bill?
harlana
@Scratchie: Indeed, I agree, does not compute. There have to be other layers to this, because it is just too damn assinine otherwise.
trollhattan
@Maude:
Agreed. Especially if they’d set sail (on a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour) you’d be looking at kidnapping and false imprsonment.
Watching this O’Keefe guy I can’t help but think of a fourteen-year-old who somehow has been given the keys to mom’s Tahoe and a credit card. What could possibly go wrong?
Allan
When trying to figure out what exactly O’Keeffe et al were attempting to accomplish with their evil plan, it’s important to remember the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Nellcote
It’s shocking how soon this story disappeared from the msm.
trollhattan
@Montysano:
A massively cringe-inducing hour. Is there a puss that invites the Fist ‘o Death(tm) more than Breitbart’s? I’d call him a douche except that douches have certain practical uses.
Jeff
@Carnacki: The fly in that ointment is the problem of getting any sentient being to have sex with O’Keefe–hell,I think most inflatable dolls have too much dignity for that.
Alwhite
The plan was simple – get CNN to call him out for the stunt while providing FAUX news with a heavily edited version of what happened that would make it appear as if SHE were the predator. Jimmy would be able to then declare that the MSM had it in for him and everything they ever said about him was a lie while FAUX would pretend that they were the more reliable source of news & CNN was slanting the story as part of the eeeee-vil librule plot.
bemused
@Nellcote:
I went looking and it’s true. It’s crickets from the msm and this is just the kind of ultra sleazy story they drool over. Howie Kurtz only put up cnn video with no commentary. Wow, just wow. I shouldn’t be so shocked at the silence but my jaw still hit the floor. It paints a very ugly and telling picture of how broken msm is.
kommrade reproductive vigor
‘Cos it’s hard to travel any distance in DC without entering MD, VA or the water.
Seriously, I don’t know and upon further checking, it may not matter. MD, VA, DC, WV all require notification. Not sure what his status could be if he was in PA.
If he made her drive all the way out to Lusby, he’s a double schmuck.
Allan
@Montysano: Isn’t it about time for Maher to fellate Darrell Issa again?
Comrade Nikolita
This happened this month, about 20 minutes away from where I grew up:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/09/17/bc-gang-rape-high-school-police.html
Ash Can
@Nellcote:
Reasons We’re Hearing Crickets:
1) It was a female reporter who was mistreated
2) It was a prominent right-winger doing the mistreating
3) It was not the president doing the mistreating, I mean who the hell does he think he is, anyway?
4) Boys will be boys
5) Geez, can’t you take a joke?
6) All of the above
Comrade Kevin
@Montysano: That wasn’t even the first time he has been on the show.
daveNYC
Christ, the theoretical dialogue reads like Penthouse letters. These guys’ grasp on the world and the way it works is somewhere between slim and nil.
If they got her on that boat, there’s no way it wouldn’t have turned ugly. You read what they expected to happen and compare it to how a functioning humab being would actually react. Ugh.
geg6
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
“Not sure what his status could be if he was in PA.”
I’m pretty sure our law is very similar to MD’s.
...now I try to be amused
O’Keefe is a real-life Doctor Horrible, only creepier. Which raises the question:
Who is Bad Horse?
@The Republic of Stupidity:
YES.
I’ve heard/read “because it pisses off liberals” for 30 years now. The conservative tribe is bonded mainly by spite, I’m convinced of it.
ChrisZ
I’m having a little trouble with the jumps a lot of people are making to calling this an attempted rape or sexual assault. Reading the excerpts CNN provides from his 13-page document, it seems to me like O’Keefe thought she would actually be seduced, or willing to pretend she was being seduced in order to “get information.” His planned dialogue (am I really spelling that wrong? Chrome thinks there’s no “ue” at the end, but that looks silly) doesn’t seem to demonstrate any attempt to force her to do anything, or to do anything more than act creepily.
Creepiness and sexual assault aren’t the same thing, and I feel like jumping to the latter is an overreaction caused by the obvious misogyny and contempt demonstrated by O’Keefe, rather than an accurate portrayal of what he planned. I’m willing to have my mind changed, but I don’t like overreactions, and that’s what a lot of the reaction feels like, as disgusting a person as O’Keefe may be.
kc
@brantl:
She’s an adult, for Christ’s sake.
Stop infantilizing her, people. If O’Keefe had planned to pull this stunt on Anderson Cooper, no one would be saying, “If Anderson Cooper were MY brother, boy, I’d beat the crap out of O’Keefe!”
Not saying O’Keefe shouldn’t have the crap beaten out of him on general principles, but geez, enough paternalism already.
Jewish Steel
@Ash Can:
@Nellcote:
Will NPR’s On The Media come to the rescue?
They gave that mealy-mouthed editor in Maine the thrashing he richly deserved.
I hope so.
ChrisZ
@ChrisZ:
I’ll just note that I hadn’t seen this nugget before.
With that piece of knowledge, I am no longer concerned about calling this an attempted sexual assault.
goatchowder
The thing that charachterizes right-wing “humor” is its viciousness, its maliciousness, its inherent cruelty.
Lefty humor tends to be absurdist, sarcastic, snide, sometimes esoteric, and often whiny, but essentially lacking in malice.
It’s not as gentle as what my brother used to call “priest humor”– a rather milquetoasty kind of wryness that he found characteristic of preachers–, but even the most fiery of lefty humorists (George Carlin, Bill Hicks, RIP) can’t be called mean-spirited. They bitch about humanity, but don’t really hate on it.
Right-wing “humor” is more like someone tripping you and knocking you down a flight of stairs, then laughing.
elmo
@ChrisZ:
I’ll reply with an abbreviated version of my response from the other thread (abbreviated because you’re not being an ass like the guy I originally responded to, so inappropriate obnoxious language is edited out of this version):
[snip]
…we usually use external clues to determine people’s internal intentions. Like this:
External clue #1: Boat, not office. What’s the difference? Why is a boat more desirable, more conducive to his goals than an office would be? The immediately obvious difference is that a boat can move and isolate its occupants.
External clue #2: Izzy Santa’s reaction. She was genuinely upset and frightened—so much so that she risked her entire career, her relationship with her colleagues and probably friends, to stop what she thought was about to happen. It’s difficult enough to risk your career and endanger your relationships, even to unmask the worst kind of wrongdoing. Who would do that to stop a harmless prank?
External clue #3: The vile misogyny expressed in the planning documents. Particularly the part attacking the reporter for her “inherent sexuality.” This is an interpretation informed by experience, but that kind of male superiority and contempt for women is often accompanied by violence—particuarly sexual violence, designed to put a woman “in her place.”
External clue #4: Fuzzy handcuffs. Granted these are ambiguous, and in the absence of clues #1 and #2 would probably mean little. They are just as likely—by themselves—to be props in a prank. But combined with the other clues, they become less amusing and more menacing.
elmo
@ChrisZ:
Holy crap. Where did you find that writeup?
Shalimar
@Ash Can:
7) The media covers what rightwing blogs and people like Drudge find interesting, and they aren’t touching this story.
Maybe that will change after the CNN special airs, since the cable news networks also really like covering each other.
ChrisZ
@elmo:
Redstate.com, actually. I was trying to find any reactions to this by conservative media, and that was the only one I found. Don’t read the comments if you want to retain your faith in humanity.
The video can be found here (quote comes at about the 7:35 mark).
CNN doesn’t seem to have released that part of the script, but that that confirms all the ideas that this was really far more than just a “prank.”
Edit: here’s the redstate link, which I forgot. Alas that my html skills suck and I don’t have those helpful little buttons in the edit box.
http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2010/09/29/bizarre-caper-targets-cnn-reporter/
kommrade reproductive vigor
Sorry, 99.9% of guys with sisters would have the same reaction. It’s what we do. I guess that makes it philastinism?
You know it never occurred to them that she might (for example) have martial arts training and snap O’Keefe like a twig. Or perhaps she’s one of those ReaLAMEricans who has a concealed carry permit. Hard to edit those tapes if you’re on life support.
Honus
@Jay: Nope it’s a brother’s voice. I’ve never been a soldier and if somebody pulled that stuff with one of my four sisters, or my secretary, or a waitress at the restaurant where I cooked or a fellow student, I’d show him his ears.
@soonergrunt:
Sooner or later they’re going to pull something with one of the above whose brother/friend/co-worker is physically capable of retaliating. Looking at the pictures of O’Keefe, the brother won’t have to be particularly beefed up.
Medicine Man
I like how O’Keefe and company were planning this caper to “expose CNN’s intentions to portray them as pseudo-journalist crazy people.”
Good for them for preempting that attack.
JCT
Good visual there– probably give new meaning to the term “crapping your pants”.
chopper
@kc:
if somebody tried to pull that shit on my brother i’d beat them bloody.
Chuck Butcher
I don’t know where I’d be, but if somebody tried this on a close friend or family member I can assure you they’d be in a hospital or a box because I have no sense of humor about some things. Twenty some years of evidence says I’m not violent at all – abrupt change is quite possible…
SciVo
Damn straight, John, even though I’d have to cross the continent to do it.
@Martin: Good call! They could do a roundtable every week on “what the fuck was this dipshit trying to do?” with progressively deeper analysis for months.