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You are here: Home / Credibility? WTF IS THAT?

Credibility? WTF IS THAT?

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And the O’Keefe fail parade marches on, defiantly giving facts and reality the middle finger as he goose-steps through our public discourse:

Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released a new video today supposedly exposing voter fraud in North Carolina by highlighting non-citizens like Zbigniew Gorzkowski who have voted in recent elections.

The problem: Gorzkowski is an American citizen.

From the grave, Breitbart keeps on giving with his clown car posse.

Reader Interactions

87Comments

  1. 1.

    Shrillhouse

    The problem: Gorzkowski is an American citizen O’Keefe is an absolute imbecile.

  4. 4.

    JR (Not the other JR)

    Can’t wait til this loser is busted for meth posession. Not if, but when.

  5. 5.

    jibeaux

    You know, proving someone is NOT a citizen seems like the purview mostly of idiots. And if your name is Zbigniew Gorzkowski, chances are good you’ve got your ducks in a row documentation-wise before you go do something like vote or otherwise call official attention to yourself. This is what these guys will never catch on to. You can have a lawful permanent resident card and still be deported for, say, a dope conviction. Why on earth would you risk voting when there’s no reward?

  6. 6.

    Bobby Thomson

    Yeah, but all he has to do is put this stuff out there and the usual suspects will pass it along uncritically, just as they always have. A lack of accuracy never got in his way before.

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    You’d think by now that dropped-on-his-head-too-many-times-as-an-infant O’Keefe would have figured out the importance of this by now.

    Or not, as the vermin of the Village don’t know anything about due diligence, either, and they’re the ones with the corporate-controlled megaphones and have deadlines to meet and cocktail weenies to eat, so no time for that boring fact checking shit.

  8. 8.

    jl

    Make just one little mistake in an important story, with many intersecting aspects at multiple levels, and you jump all over the guy. Yeesh.

    Edit: who is that nice lady corporate pundit hack who said once that the only important thing is that the story is ‘out there now’ so the Democrats, or voting rights, or whoever, is on the other side, has a problem? Winner winner, chicken dinner!

  9. 9.

    Bubblegum Tate

    But I bet somebody somewhere registered to vote where they weren’t supposed to, therefore O’Keefe is right and should be lauded on the House floor.

  10. 10.

    Villago Delenda Est

    This would have been much more effective if the name had been “Sanchez” or “Al-Noorda” or something vaguely sub-Saharan African.

  12. 12.

    Michael Demmons

    The problem is, no one will care. People who watch this film are prone to confirmation bias. The guy’s name is Gorzkowski. Someone says he is not a citizen. Your average viewer won’t do any work to find out otherwise.

    But the average viewer will repeat it and repeat it and repeat it until it becomes “a fact.”

  14. 14.

    pragmatism

    @Bubblegum Tate: there is no such thing as bad publicity for brave winger souls like o’keefe because of the librul media bias. he’s prolly lighting up a victory cigar with a $1 bill right now like the discount player he is.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @pragmatism:

    After all, O’Keefe isn’t concerned with fact. He’s a propagandist, first and foremost. The “journalist” thing is purest bullshit.

  17. 17.

    The Other Chuck

    O’Keefe I believe just falsely accused someone of a felony. Anyone up for donating to Gorzkowski’s legal fund so he can take O’Keefe to the cleaners for libel?

  19. 19.

    chopper

    Zbigniew Gorzkowski

    he emigrated from Consonantinople 16 years ago, apparently.

  20. 20.

    jwb

    The political logic of all this voter ID stuff leads to a national ID card. That should be fun, and it should bring us one notch closer to wingularity.

  21. 21.

    Violet

    @JR (Not the other JR):
    Meth possession is too tame. Meth production, maybe. I think his apparently endless need to find others doing something wrong/bad/illegal is projection because he is hiding something big. Touching little girls inappropriately, or something equally awful like that.

  22. 22.

    RossinDetroit

    Right wing provocateurs cannot fail. They can only be failed by the MSM.

  24. 24.

    Teddy's Person

    And the O’Keefe fail parade marches on, defiantly giving facts and reality the middle finger as he goose-steps through our public discourse:

    There’s so much awesome in that sentence – informative and accurate yet delightfully colorful.

    goose-steps through our public discourse is my favorite part.

  26. 26.

    Redshift

    @Bubblegum Tate: Sure, just like the fact that there were communists in America means that Joe McCarthy is a hero. Just because they weren’t where he claimed they were, and he trumpeted his false claims for political gain (gee, this sounds familiar) doesn’t mean he caused any harm or interfered with any legitimate efforts. If only we’d listened to him *and* not listened to him, it would have produced great results!

  27. 27.

    Chris

    @Redshift:
    Sure, just like the fact that there were communists in America means that Joe McCarthy is a hero. Just because they weren’t where he claimed they were

    You mean Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower weren’t ACTUALLY Soviet agents? My beliefs are crushed! On the other hand, it explains why America didn’t lose the Cold War within a month, as it would have if there had been nearly as many communists in government McCarthy thought…

  28. 28.

    Teddy's Person

    @Violet: Let’s not involve little girls. Maybe he could get caught rubbing one out (Pee Wee Herman style) in a movie theater watching a wildly inappropriate film (can’t decide if it’s porn or the latest Disney Princess movie).

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @Michael Demmons:

    The guy’s name is Gorzkowski. Someone says he is not a citizen. Your average viewer won’t do any work to find out otherwise.

    All I can ask is WTF? It’s not like there’s a critical shortage of Polish Americans with names like Zbigniew. Just ask Mika on Morning Joe; she’s very well acquainted with a former National Security Advisor by that name. If you think Zbigniew Gorzkowski is an incurably exotic name for an American citizen, you need to get out more.

  30. 30.

    Redshift

    @jwb: Only the wingnut mind could make the argument that it’s better for a thousand people to be prevented from voting than to have one fraudulent vote, but it’s better to have a million shootings than have one person denied his right to bear arms.

  31. 31.

    RossinDetroit

    @Redshift:

    If there actually were a ton of Communists in government, McCarthy would not be a hero. He wouldn’t have been because a lot of other, more powerful people would have known and it would have been a big issue long before he got near it. McCarthy is a hero only in his private universe where he and only he knew the truth.
    So yeah, like O’Keefe.

  32. 32.

    Comrade Dread

    @Villago Delenda Est: Come on, now, Mitt says that Russia is our number one geo-political enemy, so a guy with a Rooskie sounding name is (if anything) even more of a threat to our electoral process than the Mexicans or Terrorists.

  37. 37.

    Violet

    @Teddy’s Person:
    I don’t think him rubbing one out in a theater (does anyone even do that these days, what with internet pr0n so available?) would damage his credibility much.

    But like I said, I think he’s hiding something. He seems to have a Grand Canyon sized need to catch some non-wingnut doing something wrong. I see that as projection of his own “doing something wrong” onto others. I don’t know what he’s hiding, but it’s more than just a pr0n habit.

  38. 38.

    Chris

    @RossinDetroit:

    This.

    Paul Krugman: “[a] great irony of the situation was that anticommunism was far more virulent and extreme in America, where there were hardly any Communists, than in Western Europe, where Communist parties remained a potent political force until the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

  39. 39.

    eemom

    Speaking of the grave, when I was driving into the city today I noticed some flags at half staff, so I thought, hmm, wonder who died? I flipped through some possibilities and suddenly came to….Cheney?

    Ah, how delightful were my musings the rest of the way to the office. Oh well.

  40. 40.

    pete

    @Roger Moore: This idiot is beyond satire. I was lazily about to post that O’Keefe sounds like a terrorist name when a vague memory sent me to the Google for this — the dude with an Irish name pretending to be an Irish terrorist by dressing up as a Scot. I mean, WTF?

  41. 41.

    Roger Moore

    @rlrr:
    Or really anywhere outside of wingnutopia. Or maybe I’m just biased because I dated a Marcinkowski growing up in Colorado and work with a Swiderski and a Jozwiak here in Southern California.

  42. 42.

    Teddy's Person

    @Roger Moore: Do those play in theaters? Or do they come from the underbelly of the internet for at-home viewing only?

    We could always rely on O’Keefe style editing and insert any film we want in our “investigative footage.” Come to think of it, he doesn’t even have to be in a theater. I smell Photoshop!!

  44. 44.

    lacp

    @Redshift: This should be all over the intertubes. Fully captures the wingnut mentality…of course, that’s not much of a compliment, given the size of the mentality in question.

  45. 45.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @cantrip:

    I think she ended up paying a fine, but I’m not positive she even got that much of a punishment. Indeed, that is central to his point. Or something.

  47. 47.

    David Koch

    PPP: Black/Gay Jimmy Carter crushing Mittens 53-41 in critical bellwether state of New Hampshire.

    The swing state of New Hampshire has voted for the winner in 8 consecutive elections.

  49. 49.

    Origuy

    @eemom:

    Speaking of the grave, when I was driving into the city today I noticed some flags at half staff, so I thought, hmm, wonder who died?

    It’s Peace Officers Memorial Day. Flags are at half staff by Presidential proclamation.

  50. 50.

    Yutsano

    The wingnuts better keep their grubby paws off my pierogies. Or there will be problems. Oh yes. There WILL be problems.

  51. 51.

    Baron Jrod of Keeblershire

    @Roger Moore: Dude, have you ever actually met a right-winger?

    Their best friend could be named Sienkiewicz and they’d still get all hollered up over someone named Gorzkowski for being a furriner.

    They are pulsing hate cannons just looking for an excuse to fire. It doesn’t have to make sense; hell, it’s better if it doesn’t make sense. If anyone points out the illogic to them, they’ve just gained another target to blast.

  52. 52.

    karen marie

    @Bobby Thomson: Because even if the guy is technically a citizen, he’s not a real American, because real Americans don’t have funny names like “Zbigniew Gorzkowski” or “Reince Priebus,” and only real Americans should be allowed to vote.

  54. 54.

    Baron Jrod of Keeblershire

    @Origuy: When is Innocent Victims of Peace Officers Memorial Day?

    Oh, right. All those people had it coming. Somehow.

    Fuck the police.

  56. 56.

    BC

    @Bubblegum Tate: Well, we know that Richard Lugar, lame duck Senator from Indiana, was registered for years at a residence he didn’t own and didn’t live in. I want to see if anyone makes him the poster child for voter fraud.

  58. 58.

    AA+ Bonds

    He hasn’t been shut down yet so he will probably be doing this until he dies……………………..

  59. 59.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Chris:

    Paul Krugman: “[a] great irony of the situation was that anticommunism was far more virulent and extreme in America, where there were hardly any Communists, than in Western Europe, where Communist parties remained a potent political force until the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

    idk about irony; labor parties were stopped in America through Pinkerton massacres, show trials, and deportations

    there is a long and interesting debate about why this stuff worked better in America (or really, why it had such support from Americans) but calling it ‘irony’ whitewashes a cause as an (ironic) effect

  62. 62.

    Kay

    The difference between liberals and conservatives on voting is, liberals watch election officials and conservatives watch voters.

    That’s really conservatism in a nutshell. Incredibly, they think the “problem” with voting is voters. All voters are presumed guilty, while all state officials are presumed innocent.

    No one else in election law or process takes this approach, and, really, no one ever has. It’s unique to modern conservatives. if you’re a conservative, and you’re an election official or elected representative, voters are an adversary. It’s mind-boggling, when you think about it.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    Everyone knows by now that if they’re approached by some random, loose, 27 per center in a polling place, they don’t have to “produce” anything demanded, right?

    Vote, and then make a discrete call to local authorities, preferably from the safety of your car.

  64. 64.

    sherparick

    The only problem I had with the Think Progress piece was this:

    “O’Keefe has a responsibility as a journalist to ensure the veracity of his facts before he makes wild charges like these. A simple phone call or Nexis search would have sufficed, yet doing so would have undercut his spurious argument that voter fraud is a widespread problem in the United States.”

    I could call O’Keefe many things, starting with “R**f***er,” but “journalist” is not one of them. By the way, can one have any doubt that if the Repubs win the Senate and Presidency to go with the House, they will do their darnest to make a it a felony to vote Democrat any future relection. They will want to try to disenfranchise most of the population since they can’t trust keeping their spell over the old white folks once Obama is out of the White House.

  66. 66.

    Citizen Alan

    @jl:

    Edit: who is that nice lady corporate pundit hack who said once that the only important thing is that the story is ‘out there now’ so the Democrats, or voting rights, or whoever, is on the other side, has a problem? Winner winner, chicken dinner!

    Cokie Roberts, immortalized by Digby in “Cokie’s Law”: the idea that “journalists” should spend at least as much time on lies as they do on the truth because once the lies are “out there” and being discussed down at the beauty parlor, they have as much effect on the narrative as true statements. She was also the hag who knocked Obama for going to Hawaii for vacation to visit his dying grandmother because “Real Americans” go to Myrtle Beach.

  68. 68.

    chopper

    @PurpleGirl:

    seriously, reince priebus changed his name upon emigrating to the US, it being originally “Jethro Q. Bunn Whackett Buzzard Stubble-and-Boot Walrustitty”.

  69. 69.

    stickler

    @PurpleGirl: Ha! As it so happens, “Reince” is a nickname. Well, his middle name, actually.

    His full name is Reinhold Reince Priebus.

    Why hide the Teutonic first name? It’s not like people in the past ever gave the name Reinhold any strange connotations.

    And at least he’s not some kind of Polacky-Russkie-Serbo-Slav or anything.

  70. 70.

    Steve in DC

    I’m going to laugh like crazy when all the panic over illegal aliens, voter fraud, and gun rights between states ends up with a national ID card.

  71. 71.

    quannlace

    That’s really conservatism in a nutshell. Incredibly, they think the “problem” with voting is voters. All voters are presumed guilty, while all state officials are presumed innocent.

    And the solution is to keep the ‘wrong’ people from voting. You know, minorities, the elderly, women….

  72. 72.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    It’s Peace Officers Memorial Day. Flags are at half staff by Presidential proclamation.

    @Origuy: I raise the company flag every day, among other weird duties. I’ll never lower it to half-staff for “Peace Officers Memorial Day” until they have a memorial day for all the innocent people that cops kill in this country every year without trial or due process.

    Fuck that and fuck them. Cops want my respect? Stop being the American SS.

  74. 74.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    I’m going to laugh like crazy when all the panic over illegal aliens, voter fraud, and gun rights between states ends up with a national ID card.

    @Steve in DC: Of course you will. You’re a Republican masquerading as a faux Naderite, this must be like your nightly wet dream.

  75. 75.

    feebog

    @ Purple Girl:

    Very good point. Just what kind of a name is Reince Priebus?

    And now we find out his first name is Reinhold? I want to see his long form birth certificate, stat.

  76. 76.

    Patricia Kayden

    Love the clown postcard and caption.

    Wonder if Zbigniew Gorzkowski can sue for defamation of character or slander. Or maybe I’m too litigious.

  80. 80.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @kc:

    That is SO 60’s/70’s thinking.

    Once Scalia got appointed to the SC, all the sudden a last name ending with a vowel stopped being a marker. Just ask Joe Arpaio!

  83. 83.

    Marcellus Shale, Public Dick

    its pretty epic watching o’keiffe flounder. maybe he should look for the irish republican coast guard.

  84. 84.

    SensesFail

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    But I bet somebody somewhere registered to vote where they weren’t supposed to, therefore O’Keefe is right and should be lauded on the House floor.

    This.

    Conservatives use a similar argument against unemployment benefits.

    It must take a very tiny brain to produce such an obviously flawed line of thinking.

  85. 85.

    Jebediah

    @chopper:

    seriously, reince priebus changed his name upon emigrating to the US, it being originally “Jethro Q. Bunn Whackett Buzzard Stubble-and-Boot Walrustitty”.

    I like the cut of your jibe.

  86. 86.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @BC:

    Now that would be pretty funny. But Lugar got Teabagged, so the wingnuts don’t care about him.

  87. 87.

    Rafer Janders

    @stickler:

    It’s not like people in the past ever gave the name Reinhold any strange connotations.

    Um, actually, what strange connotations attach to the name Reinhold due to people in the past? I can’t think of any very prominent Reinholds other than the theologian and public intellectual Reinhold Niebuhr.

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