James O'Keefe, the conservative political activist who's much-edited film was responsible for destroying Acorn, who, in the proud tradition of Watergate, was convicted of attempting to bug the office of Louisiana Sentaor Mary Landrieu, who tried to film himself seducing CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau (and if the thought of catching a glimpse of that little worm's worm doesn't make you want to toss your cookies, I don't know what would), has once again trained his camera on the liberal left.
This time, he filmed NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller making racist statements to two supposedly Muslim potential donors. As a result, Schiller and his boss, NPR's CEO, both lost their jobs.
Now it turns out O'Keefe's sting film is, how can I put this delicately? a big fat bunch of bullshit.
To wit:
1) He edited out Schiller's careful, and repeated, explanations that NPR donors have no input into the news process.
2) He removed Schiller's more balanced descriptions of the Tea Party, leaving only the parts where he called them racists. (By the way, if you don't want to be called a racist, don't hang out with guys whose other suit is a sheet.)
2) He altered the video so that answers Schiller gave to one question appear to answer a completely different question.
In the world of evasions, distortions and pants-on-fire horseshit, I will argue that, while the first two bits of editing may fall under "evasions and distortions" that last one, where he actually changed which questions went with which answers, is a flat-out lie.
O'Keefe admits to being "yellow" and says his work is in the proud tradition of muckraking. But muckraking has no proud tradition. A hundred years ago it was garbage and it's still garbage today.
And, just in case you're wondering why I'm so torqued about this, it's because I initially bought this load of crap. Which means I'm as gullible as he is yellow.
(Note: The Yellow Kid was the first newspaper cartoon. Drawn by Richard Occault, it emerged at the turn of the last century, as William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer battled for the title of king of the New York newspaper market. They are famous, not for setting any sort of bar for journalistic integrity, but for catching the public's attention. Sound familiar?)
How ugly that someone stoops so low. When I was twenty a bunch of us coeds were sitting on the curb in front of our dorm waiting for the big spring frat and sority parade which we did not know had been cancelled at the last minute because of campus riots by a few frats the night before. The newspapers seized on our innocent waiting for a parade that had been cancelled as a "Demonstration". Since then, I have been a skeptic of newspapers although, like you, I still get taken in by scams by unscrupulous writers. Can't really call them reporters since they are not reporting. They are writing fiction.
ReplyDeleteNotice that I spelled sorority wrong. Hope that is the only word.
ReplyDelete" ..little worm's worm" Ha Ha. That's funny!
ReplyDeleteI heard the article NPR did about this sham, and they cleared it up for me too. I hate to see that kind of low life stuff these days.
If he would apply himself, he could be more effective using his talent and drive to be more bi-partisan and fair about what's going on, like someone like..uh...you know that one guy...oh yeah...Michael Moore.
I feel like I walked into a class I thought was for art :) LOL
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed that NPR reacted with the two people leaving BEFORE the story was checked out. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteIt pisses me off that somebody messed with NPR. There are a lot of things that deserve a little muck racking, but lay off public radio.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be such a Raisin Head, but I love NPR in the morning. How can we all sit by and not protest those innocent people who got fired? Let's go to Wisconsin!
ReplyDeleteIs it because they are so highly educated and connected, they will get jobs tomorrow making more than you ever will?
Is there anybody out there?
With clever editing and photoshopping, you don't know what to believe anymore.
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