.
That’s the phrase my Irish-American Nana would use, when an extended family member had done something she judged potentially embarrassing to the whole clan. (Eventually, I found out this was her interpretation of the Yiddish a shanda fur die goy.) And I could hear her voice saying it, when I first ran across this article in the Boston Phoenix:
Young, attractive, ambitious, conservative, and black, Nadia Naffe should have been a right-wing operative’s dream.
For a time, she was. Naffe served as a campaign coordinator in Florida for George W. Bush’s re-election effort, hobnobbed with conservative superstars like Andrew Breitbart, and joined the production team of James O’Keefe, the shock-videographer whose pranks humiliated NPR and made ACORN a dirty word…
Within weeks of meeting each other, O’Keefe and Naffe were teaming up to ambush progressive politicians and academics from coast to coast — raising gobs of money from some of the conservative movement’s biggest donors.
And then, in a single night nearly two years after they first met, Naffe’s life became a nightmare. She says O’Keefe took her to a barn and drugged her, then turned on her — setting off a campaign of intense harassment. For bloggers like Breitbart and his followers, hounding Naffe became a crusade. “RUIN HER,” wrote one commenter on a right-wing blog, in just a small example of the flames fanned at Naffe over the past year and a half. “Burn her f*cking world to the ground, and salt the earth as you leave. Make the wasteland a memorial to all who would consider pulling that kind of bullsh*t.” Indeed, Breitbart hounded Naffe to the end of his life. On the day of his death, one year ago this week, his final tweet was a snide jab aimed directly at her….
If you’re a stickler about speaking only good of the dead, I guess Andrew Breitbart would be proud that he could cause more trouble after his death than most people still on this side of the Styx.
Ruckus
Pinhead is one of the reasons that I call all conservatives, assholes. I should amend that to – complete, fucking, ginormous assholes without the common sense to even wipe up after themselves, let alone not attempt to shit upon everyone.
bnut
Never post Taylor Swift again. Ever. I don’t care if it has human screaming goats. As a Nashville resident I am tired of her life. Ugh.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I’d rework O’Keefe’s teeth with a Shillelagh if I had a chance. He deserves to spend a long, long time in a prison.
ruemara
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. Sorry, my sympathy funnel is broken.
Punchy
Too much info left out….so did O’Keefe try and rape her in a barn? What does the drugging and barn have to do w/ them turning against her? Why so much anger against a fellow teammate?
Urza
“shines a spotlight on an even uglier crossfire: the one between the slanderous sewer of right-wing smear culture and its doppelganger, a reactionary band of left-wingers that’s equally willing to kick below the belt. ”
Just once I’d like to see an example of left wingers acting like O’Keefe so I could imagine that all the people who say both sides do it aren’t total morons or lying.
Yutsano
Herbes de Provence. Is there anything they don’t make fucking amazing?
peach flavored shampoo
@Yutsano: Ice cream
Spaghetti Lee
Has anyone ever deserved a kick in the nuts more than O’Keefe? I’d be willing to waive all the prison time he’s racked up in exchange for five nut shots by an NFL kicker.
LesGS
Young folks do many, many, many stupid things.
I remember.
I’m old.
I hope I’m a better person now.
I hope these young folks will become better people.
Because my children are better than I ever was.
Goats are awesome.
pacem appellant
@Urza: I read the whole thing! Great article about a controversy I didn’t even know about. Regardless, the worst the liberals did was a) cry “rape” and then retract it, and b) sold lots of pot (maybe, maybe not he planted a bomb in the 70s), and c) maybe, maybe not SWAT’ed a particularly nasty DA. The worst the wingers did was a) drug a friend, b) illegally use DA privileges to acquire Naffe’s personal records, and c) try to defame an NYU prof by getting enough words of his on tape to twist him into a bigot.
Nasty stuff all around.
Alison
Darn you, AL. You had to throw Taylor Swift and O’Keeffe at me? I had a pretty good day, for me. Found a great present for someone, started a good book, took a brave and scary step that turned out well and made me feel good…and now I just wanna go punch someone.
Oh well. Being pleased and irritated at the same time is nothing new, to be sure.
Spaghetti Lee
@LesGS:
Might as well raise the question: when does ‘youthful mistakes’ stop being an excuse? O’Keefe’s 28. I’d say, if not by now then real soon. 28’s not old enough to know everything, but it’s old enough for him to stop being a piece-of-shit prick.
Villago Delenda Est
@Spaghetti Lee:
It was established in the 90’s, by Henry Hyde, that “youthful indiscretions” can happen as late as one’s mid to late 40’s.
I’m glad Breitbart is dead. I only wish the entire gang of Breitbart thugs, most definitely including the vile shitstain O’Keefe, died with him.
Yutsano
@Spaghetti Lee: He’s still a convicted felon. That stain should follow him for at least another decade.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison: The Taylor Swift video could have been on auto-play.
piratedan
love the comments on how because there aren’t any quotes or response from the people being exposed it makes the whole exercise/article invalid… gee I wonder how many liberals that breitbart.com contacts before they run any of their asinine pieces….
Nemo_N
So provocative! His transgressions only make him a more complex figure! Moral ambiguity!
Bloggers told me all of this.
Ruckus
@Spaghetti Lee:
I don’t know about this. How many old assholes on his side of the isle aren’t any better at 40, 50, 60…
I have to admit I think I’m a better person now than I was at 18 or 28 but some of that is just experience, but I can’t recall, not having empathy for my fellow man and the shitty things that befall us, or thinking that it’s better to go along than get along or it’s better to hate than understand, or it’s better to destroy than build or…
Have been listening to Playing for Change on youtube this evening and it’s wonderful listening to all the artists from around the world playing together. Gives me a little ray that the world is not totally fucked.
Nemo_N
Oh yeah:
wonkette.com/424143/james-okeefe-tries-to-get-cnn-reporter-onto-his-dildo-lube-boat
I suppose “balance” demands that he must be given a free pass. To shun him would be “partisan”.
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: That would have added many more swears to my comment. Auto-play is of teh debil.
rda909
@Urza: I was going to highlight the same thing. No need to ever finish any article that casually throws in a ridiculous false equivalency like that. And it was around 10 pages…for such a meaningless topic?! Yeesh.
NotMax
The Breitbart cabal is composed of amoral, self-serving, publicity craving, depraved, vile, base, perverted, small-minded, cliquish cultists?
Who knew?
/snark
Narcissus
So how many people has Okeefe tried to rape now
Calouste
OT, the BBC reports that Hugo Chávez is “battling for his life”.
karen
My guess is that Naffe turned hot pants O’Keefe and he’s been punishing her for it ever since.
And O’Keefe deserves to have the joke between his legs that he calls a dick and get it slowly cut off with a rusty dull razor. Then he needs to get tetanus from it and die.
balconesfault
There’s the old saying “it’s all good fun, until someone gets hurt”.
For today’s conservatives, the saying really goes “it’s all good fun, until I get hurt”
amk
@ruemara: Yup. She was bent on destroying other people. Karma
balconesfault
@amk: Yep. Saddest thing in my mind is my suspicion that had the near O’Keefe victim been anyone but herself, she’d have been one the hounders. Just a twist of fate that she became the houndee.
raven
Goddamn furnace went out and it was freezing. Fortunately I was able to go under the house and fiddle with it and it’s on!
WereBear
As I began reading this post, I wondered how such tokens are treated… and now I have the answer.
Part of being The Only One that lets them get ahead is…. being The Only One. That is what being a minority in the Republican Party is about, because there aren’t all that many, and it’s because of the way they are treated.
Seeing the way the jackals turn on the stragglers also gives me an insight into how they fuss about FAMILY, because from this angle, they don’t have any friends.
SFAW
@raven:
If you weren’t so bleedin’ cheap, you woulda bought a FULL basement to go with that house.
Kidding, of course. Glad you were able to fix it, being cold sucks. (So sayeth Captain Obvious.)
Suffern ACE
Gad. I can’t imagine living my life that way. It appears that LA has an assistant DA whose job it is to assist breitbert’s jackals. These are just awful people.
karen marie
I read the whole thing and regret the time wasted.
She was stupid enough to believe and go along with the retarded nonsense promoted by O’Keefe and his friends, and then continues to engage them. My sympathy and outrage is unavailable to people that stupid. You lay down with dogs, you get fleas.
And the author of the article desperately needs an editor. It was badly written, confused and repetitive.
Schlemizel
Not too surprised your Irish Nana would know some Yiddish. There was a decent sized population of Jews in Ireland at one time. Heck at one time the mayor of Dublin was Jewish. That lead to an urban legend that I don’t know if it is true or not but it makes a good story. The English had outlawed the use of Gaelic in Ireland but a cop saw a Jewish shop with Hebrew lettering & thought it must be Gaelic. He arrested the shop owner & took him to jail. The mayor of course found out & their was one less cop on the force in Dublin!
Matt McIrvin
@rda909: I kept waiting for the bit where the rabid left-wing organizations go nutzoid, and what they had was… Brett Kimberlin, a serial bomber from the 1970s whose most famous bit of fraudulent political clowning was 20 years ago. OK, I’ll give them Brett Kimberlin.
Matt McIrvin
@karen marie: I don’t care how dumb people are; nobody deserves that. I do wish the article were better-written.
Chris
@ruemara:
For anything else, mine would be too, but for rape, it’s still working. Even for conservative scum.
@Punchy:
I’m kind of curious about this too. Is it just that Breitbart didn’t like an uppity woman forgetting her place?
Mystical Chick
I read the entire article (Why? I’m not awake yet, that’s why!) and geez, I kept waiting for something – ANYTHING – to happen. It was not well written, I agree.
And I also agree that karma, bitch. One thing I’ve learned (thankfully by watching and not doing) is they will always, always turn on you at some point. Just because you get to smoke fine Cuban cigars with Breitbart doesn’t mean you all are pals. If money and/or fame is involved, as soon as you are no longer useful, BAM! they turn on your stupid ass.
No sympathy for her.
But I do have sympathy for my fellow BJ-ers who also read that whole thing. Geesh. What a way to start a Friday!
bjacques
The article hints that Naffe has since grown a social conscience, but it seems to have taken a drugging and being set upon by Breitbart’s winged monkeys to arouse it, and not the targets of the stings turning out to be basically honest.
Despite the obligatory “both sides do it,” I thought the article was fairly complete, especially for people unfamiliar with the Breitbart and O’Keefe sagas.
El Cid
I think you mean “Citizen Journalist” O’Keefe. Let’s have some respect for the office, okay?
Chris
@bjacques:
Conservatism in a nutshell: “it’s not real until it happens to me.”
danielx
@bnut:
Every time I see or hear her I keep wanting to refer her to those words from that wise man Dr. Phil: Cheer up, there’s hope. The common thread to all your dysfunctional relationships is…you!
Re: Naffe
This story is bizarro world, even though it’s been around for a while. One can feel a certain frisson for Naffe, although she certainly didn’t seem to have any problem with O’Keefe until his beady eyes were fixed on her. The sleazy tactics, the entrapment, the multiple felonies – call me crazy, but these would seem to be indications of a personality type with whom a prudent person would prefer not to be associated.
There certainly does seem to be a common thread running through O’Keefe’s planned, imagined or actual relationships with women, and it doesn’t include the concept of consensual. Going way out on a limb, I’d venture to make a prediction that eventually O’Keefe’s predilections towards pimp behavior and forcing his attentions on unwilling women will lead him to a bad end.
Brett Kimberlin…oh my, a name from the distant past. I was a teenager when ol’ Brett was an Indianapolis luminary of sorts, even ate in the vegetarian restaurant he owned. (It was not a center for culinary excellence.) He was then and remains a charming sociopath for whom other people are cardboard cutouts, existing to serve his purposes and nothing more. The bombs he set off were a diversion (unsuccessful) for the local ‘thorities from their investigations of his involvement in moving tonnage weight of da chronic, as these crazy kids refer to it these days. I hold no brief whatever for Frey, who damn sure shouldn’t be an deputy DA. But I can’t help but feel for anyone who ends up on Kimberlin’s shit list, because everything is personal with him – there’s no political angle, it’s about hurting people he doesn’t like and he doesn’t give a rusty goddamn about who else gets hurt in the process.
balconesfault
@bjacques:
Meh. I’m not convinced.
After all – this is the woman who filed an EEOC claim against the Florida Republican Party for how they treated her, then continued to work for conservative activists, as if wholly not understanding that the people she was working for/with would gut the EEOC in a New York minute if they could get away with it …
dance around in your bones
Everybody has already said what I was going to say, and in a much better fashion.
Dang, that happens a lot here.
Citizen_X
The good news is that fucker’s still dead.
Bob2
Ask John Cole about being trapped in the wingnut bubble guys before judging her too harshly…:-P.
I just wish he was still subscribed the conservative journolist attack so and so meme of the day so we could see how they coordinate.
I met O’Keefe in passing a couple times in college and he always seemed very angry, his eyes and facial expressions were wooden, and I guess he was an okay Glee Club singer.
The article is pretty complete as far as covering most known things about O’Keefe tbqh. His column was Feathers of Steel in the Daily Targum and his asshat publication, The Centurion, was just trolling people. If his attempts at humor weren’t based in ressentiment, he might actually have been funny, but as such, no humor.
karen marie
@Chris: There was no rape. Naffe doesn’t claim rape, and if you think O’Keefe could manage to rape the journalist … well, let’s just say you probably have more confidence in him than his mother does.
I don’t make light of rape, but I also don’t get sweaty around the collar over disgusting little gangsta-wannabes like O’Keefe.
kindness
Is Frey still a LA Assistant DA? How could that be?
Mnemosyne
@Schlemizel:
Depending on where Anne Laurie’s grandmother lived, she also could have learned Yiddish from her neighbors in the US. James Cagney spoke Yiddish fluently because he learned it from the other kids in his neighborhood in NYC.
It made things very interesting for him in Hollywood when he was negotiating contracts and the predominantly Jewish studio heads thought they were having a private conversation in front of him when they spoke in Yiddish.
Mnemosyne
@karen marie:
I don’t know if this says something good or something bad about O’Keefe, but I think he aspires to be a rapist but can’t quite manage it. As you said, he thinks it will make him a tough guy.
Rafer Janders
@Schlemizel:
His grandmother was Irish-American, so there’s a simpler explanation: New York City. Lots of Jews and Irish lived in the same neighborhoods, so it was easy for the Irish to pick up some Yiddish phrases.
Rathskeller
Like others, I also regret wading through this article looking for things of interest. They are vile, hateful people, and the victim here simply looks dumb and only slightly less mean than the victimizers.
I did laugh out loud when it was revealed that O’Rapey had logged in on her phone to read his emails. He’s really a jackass.
Howlin Wolfe
@Punchy: You have to read the whole thing at the BP. It’s pretty interesting for the perspective on James O’Keefe, but it made me mad that the journalists who wrote it equivocated the left blogisphere with Brett Kimberlin.
Howlin Wolfe
@Rafer Janders: “Mr. Moses too-loo-ra-lye-ay” (sp?) is a song about a time in Ireland when Irish Gaelic was barred by law from shop signs and written documents, and even from being spoken, if I have it right. The song pokes fun at the stupidity of the British soldiers occupying Ireland, one of whom mistook Mr. Moses’s shop sign in Hebrew alphabet to be Irish, and arrested Mr. Moses as a Fenian rebel.
Howlin Wolfe
@dance around in your bones: Say it anyway . . . with flowers! You got any?
rikyrah
no better for her stupid ass. period. you get in bed with vermin…don’t be surprised by what you catch.
different-church-lady
Being a somewhat regular reader of the Phoenix, I would suggest one needs to take any Chris Faraone column with a large grain of course sea salt, whatever the color.
Gemina13
Badly written, execrably edited, and containing nothing that most of us didn’t know beforehand–that Breitbart’s gang of political script-kiddies are a vicious bunch, and anyone stupid enough to fall in with them should expect to get bitten.