Another rant from the quiet one…

O'Keefe & Giles in their ACORN outfits

If the name, James O’Keefe doesn’t ring a bell then you might know him as the conservative activist that made a series of undercover videos that eventually toppled the community organizing group, ACORN. Back in 2009 O’Keefe along with another activist, Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute respectively allegedly asking for advice from ACORN employees on how to get money to start a house of ill-repute. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow later revealed that the raw footage from the tapes led her to believe that all of the ACORN people and the lawmakers who later shut ACORN down were had by O’Keefe and his colleagues. California attorney general Jerry Brown found no criminal action on their part.

Shortly thereafter, O’Keefe was arrested after taping associates entering the office of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu posing as telephone repairmen. He pleaded guilty to a charge of entering a federal office under false pretenses and is now on probation.

 Flash forward to August 17^th, 2010. CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau arrives at a house in Lusby, Maryland after speaking with O’Keefe and arranging a meeting to ask him about a music video shoot he was doing and to request to be present for it.  CNN is planning a two-day documentary called “Right on the Edge” which will feature O’Keefe and other young, right-wing activists and their unusual activities in the promotion of the conservative agenda.

Abbie Boudreau

O’Keefe however was setting Boudreau up for another secret video punking. This one was particularly sinister however. O’Keefe said “This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine.” Despite stealing material from Don Henley, O’Keefe meant that he wanted to punish Boudreau for being an attractive journalist that he believed only had the job because of that. He had loaded up a boat with sexually explicit items including pornographic magazines and sex toys and had intended to “seduce” Boudreau and record it all in order to embarrass and discredit her as a journalist. O’Keefe and his minions even designed a script for the events, which was obtained by CNN and verified by the one person that saved Boudreau from the entire event.

That person is (was) the director of O’Keefe’s organization, Project Veritas, Izzy Santa. Santa realized just in time that the entire idea was stupid and could have produced an unneeded backlash against O’Keefe and their group. She stopped Boudreau outside of the boat and warned her not to meet with O’Keefe. Boudreau took the hint and high-tailed it out of the area. Santa was also forthcoming to Boudreau about the planning of the event. She is no longer in her position but apparently is still on the Project Veritas payroll.

Where to start?  O’Keefe is clearly deluded as to his belief that this would have furthered the agenda of the conservative right. Video of him being creepy and attempting to seduce a reporter would have been at best laughable and at worst criminal. People on probation should probably think these things through a little more. That of course is not really the point. The point is that there is a current of young conservatives that feel this is the best way to make change happen. If you have not already, read that script. This is meticulous and borderline diabolical planning.

Their goal is not to promote a conservative agenda. Their goal is to embarrass, harass, and attempt to ruin the career of an award winning journalist only because they believe that she works for a left-leaning news organization and that she only has that job due to the fact that she is good looking. Why is this acceptable to anyone?  This is not Allen Ludden’s Hidden Camera.  This is scheming group of 11^th grade-minded people with a lot of time and money. Their antics are childish, dangerous, and as we’ve already seen, criminal.

I have not seen any mention of this most recent action anywhere but CNN and that may only be in an attempt to promote the special this weekend. But I might also point out that conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are not even making mention of this.  That means two things. 1) O’Keefe has crossed a line that even Rush won’t follow BUT 2) Limbaugh and O’Reilly and their ilk don’t want O’Keefe to stop.  Because if they cared enough about conservatism and the principles of morality, they would condemn this person and his organization and his feeble, misguided attempts to hurt liberals, liberal organizations, or anyone that O’Keefe deems anti-conservative.