Small Pimpin'
(Graphics credit: Michael at 2 Millionth Web Log)
Yellow "investigative journalist" James O'Keefe is a tool. (You probably already knew that.) As Brad Blog has been saying for weeks, the ACORN tapes are pretty much bogus. For instance, O'Keefe wasn't dressed as a pimp during his much ballyhooed (and sometimes illegal) ACORN interviews. And he didn't even present himself as a pimp. Pimpgate is pimpless. And the videotape he presented to the world was sliced in other grossly misleading and sensational ways. Rather than get both sides of the story, Fox News immediately treated the edited video as gospel upon its release, and nearly put it on a 24/7 news loop. So now that the unedited version is available, Rachel Maddow provided some revealing context on her show last night. (Video below.)
She finds that O'Keefe edited the interviews to imply things conservatives wanted to believe (i.e., the worst), and this cost the jobs of people who were sincerely trying to 1) alert authorities of illegal human trafficking and 2) counsel a young woman out of a life of prostitution. ("You can do anything"). O'Keefe wasted their time, videotaped them with a hidden camera, and then edited the tape to stoke furor at Foxbart News, which led to excessive outrage, and ultimately these people lost their jobs. But at least O'Keefe got famous.
I haven't seen the whole unedited tape, nor read the entirety of this CA AG report on O'Keefe's "sting". And I'm certainly not excusing the nearly defunct ACORN en toto-- especially the greedheads who were running the organization. But the instances Rachel Maddow highlights were obviously edited and decontextualized for maximum political misrepresentation. O'Keefe hides behind words like "investigative journalism" and "veritas", and receives rock star treatment at conservative conferences. In reality, he's dishonest-- a bad joke. O'Keefe's not a pimp. He's a political whore.
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Labels: Cons
