Slime Job

The leftyblog community is turning cartwheels because James O’Keefe pled guilty to his phone shenanigans in Mary Landrieu’s office.

But as with pretty  much everything you read on leftyblogs, the facts are wrong:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana has filed a court document admitting that James O’Keefe did not intend to tamper with the phones at Mary Landrieu’s office, or commit any other felony.

Oh — and the good folks at the Department of Justice don’t particularly want you to know that. This post reveals that, at O’Keefe’s hearing, the Assistant U.S. Attorney tried not to read that part of the document in court. What’s more, the U.S. Attorney pointedly omitted this critical information from their press release.

And the part that the press carries is, of course, the only reality the lefty smear machine cares about.

his Twitter feed.

33 thoughts on “Slime Job

  1. No doubt all of the liberal bloggers who accused O’Keefe of replaying the Watergate burglary will quickly apologize.
    Just as they did when it was determined that Kentucky the census worker was a suicide, and not the victim of neo-confederates.

    But maybe not. I googled “murdered census worker” and the first hit was a CBS news story with the headline Terror in Kentucky: Census Worker’s Murder.
    The second hit? Investigators: Kentucky Census Worker Killed Himself. From Fox.

  2. Mr. D, I would hesitate to disappont you.

    I read the story about 15 minutes after it broke – from Fox News by the way – and saw that claim. (I similarly saw the statements about the suicide etc.; they got far more coverage than you are claiming Mitch.)

    As Mr. O’Keefe was interrupted before finishing whatever he was going to do with the phone equipment in another part of the building from Landrieu’s office, we will never know for certain.

    I have yet to hear any explanation why, if O’Keefe’s purpose – as he has stated – was to determine if Landrieu’s phones were indeed clogged or not with calls about health care reform (the reason given for why one of the individuals dressed (sort of) as a phone repairer picked up the handset from the phone in Landrieu’s office.

    I have never heard from O’Keefe and his colleagues in crime (a misdemeanor is still a crime) if there was or was not a dial tone. I’d expect that if there had been, we would have heard about it by now.

    Mitch also omitted that O’Keefe apparently made a call to the office, while sitting in that office using his phone to video the actions – which apparently did not ring through. Another highly pertinent of the escapade, given far less attention then those other news items Mitch rails against.

    And if, as it seems, O’Keefe had already gathered the information he was seeking – according to his explanations and narrative – then WHY was it that he and his colleagues sought out the area of the building that housed the main phone equipment? The point was that he believed Landrieu’s office was ducking calls. They were not. So…….just what was O’Keefe doing?

    Could the feds prove intent beyond what he actually finished doing? No.

    Was he intending to tap or otherwise interfere with phones? Who knows? Claims do not constitute proof of anything.

    I also didn’t see much coverage of O’Keefe bargaining his way out of being charged with a felony in California in exchange for providing all of his unedited tapes either. Care to address that felony, which he freely admitted, Mr. D.?

  3. As Mr. O’Keefe was interrupted before finishing whatever he was going to do with the phone equipment in another part of the building from Landrieu’s office, we will never know for certain.
    Dog Gone, are you on one of your “prove a negative” rants again?
    There is no evidence that O’Keefe & company were going to do anything to landrie’s phone system. You have no idea if the dudes had the know-how how or the equipment to tap a phone system. You do know that O’Keefe can make movies. What the Hell do you think he was doing there? Bugging phones.
    Know one has ever proved that O’Keefe did not kill Bill Sparkman, either.

  4. Hey Mitch, Lucky Rosenbaum was involved in an altercation. Two men attacked him while struggling his concealed handgun was revealed. One ran away and the other was arrested. Lucky never drew his weapon from its holster.

    But incidents like this never happen.

    Today’s Pioneer Press has the story.

  5. Care to address that felony, which he freely admitted, Mr. D.?

    Not especially, Mrs. Teasdale. Your obsessions aren’t my obsessions, which should make both of us happy.

    I’ll let Mitch deal with the rest of your post if he feels the need, but suffice it to say it’s another 500 words in the service of nothing.

  6. Know one has ever proved that O’Keefe did not kill Bill Sparkman, either.

    Nor has anyone proven that O’Keefe isn’t D. B. Cooper. But I wouldn’t put it past him — that rat bastard is capable of anything.

  7. DG, do you just collapse in exhaustion at the end of the day from all the energy you expend being so willfully obtuse? It’s simply astonishing how much effort you put into being such a ridiculous tool. Here’s a subtle starting point from which you can begin to heal thyself: Republicans/conservatives aren’t evil darklords who bathe in oil and baby’s blood and twirl their handlebar moustaches as they plot to trample poor people while wearing metal cleats; and Democrats/liberals aren’t some heaven-sent gaggle of purists who have everyone’s best interests at heart and fart unicorn dust and pixy sneezes.

    Man I’m tired of comment thread bullsh*t. It’s no wonder I rarely engage in it any more.

  8. As Mr. O’Keefe was interrupted before finishing whatever he was going to do with the phone equipment in another part of the building from Landrieu’s office, we will never know for certain.

    This is utterly true. We will never know for certain. It could be that he was going to put a wiretap on them, and had foolishly forgotten to obtain any of the equipment necessary. It could be that he was going to club a cute little kitten to death with a phone for his own sexual gratification, and had a batch of kittens on the way, about to be delivered by a compatriot, when his dastardly deed was interrupted. It might be that he had confused Mary Landrieu with Landru, from Star Trek, and really had been looking to get Nimoy’s autograph via his good offices…

    We do know that the Feds have stipulated, in the plea documentation that O’Keefe and company did all this “…not to actually tamper with the phone system, or to commit any other felony.”

    Best guess: O’Keefe, whose career is staging embarrassing candid videos of folks whose politics he disagrees with, was attempting to do just that, again.

  9. Yossarian, I do not beleive that all conservatives / republicans are bad or that all liberals / democrats are good. This actually parallels part of an email exchange I was having recently with Mitch.

    I come from a conservative family, whom I love. I regard Mitch as a conservative friend, and see him as a devoted family man, a person of intelligence and perceptiveness, tremendous creativity and talent – particularly in his writing. I consider him to have a lot of integrity, and I have a lot of respect for him.

    That is not in any way changed by having specific disagreements with him, any more than it is changed by the things I do agree with him over. That is equally true of how I feel about other conservatives and Republicans.

    I have followed O’Keefe’s carrer staging what you call candid videos very carefully. I find him to be deceitful and deceptive, dishonest, certainly no journalist, and utterly unworthy of the praise he has received. I think he is a nasty little weasel of an opportunist. I have no respect for him, and do not find him to represent the principles that I admire in my conservative friends.

    The reverse you see is also true Yossarian, there are good liberals / democrats — even independents — who are not evil, and there are SOME conservatives / republicans who are not pure as the driven snow or even just good too. You and the other commenters might want to consider that a well.

  10. joelr, O’Keefe’s little trip to the are where the main phone equipment was kept and where he was actually arrested has nothing to do with his stated attempt to make a video about the conduct in Landrieu’s office.

    All of your meanderings about kittens doesn’t really address that, but it is a nice try at spin and distraction.

    A far more interesting aspect to this story were the two very conflicting comments by the two judges involved.

  11. joelr, O’Keefe’s little trip to the are where the main phone equipment was kept and where he was actually arrested has nothing to do with his stated attempt to make a video about the conduct in Landrieu’s office.

    Nor, per the Feds, has it anything to do with any intent to commit a felony, which, they say, quite clearly, he not only didn’t provably have, but didn’t have. That’s not affected by your lack of affection for his work.

    That said, I’m more than a little curious as to how a guy without anything that could be used to tap a phone making a “little trip” to an area where main phone equipment, as well as other stuff, was would be relevant. How, approximately, would that work? (Aha, O’Keefe thought, rubbing his hands together in evil glee, now I know that they have central phones, and where they are. It’s only a matter of acquiring the wiretapping equipment and installing the wiretaps without getting caught before I can find out just what’s on the pizza that they order for lunch.)

    It’s entirely possible — approaching certainty — that when he was in the main area of the office, he was near to where some of the employees stored their prescription medications during the day — it would be highly unlikely that any of the senator’s employees didn’t need to take a prescription pill, now and then — but that doesn’t make it likely that he was there to steal their drugs and sell them on the black market, either.

  12. Nor, per the Feds, has it anything to do with any intent to commit a felony

    Don’t bother, Joel. When it comes to conservatives that the smear machine has declared trayf, one is “innocent until supposed guilty”.

  13. I’m not claiming he was there to wire tap, I’m claiming his being in the vicinity of the main phone equipment is inconsistent with his explanation for what he was doing. As O’Keefe gave no indication he had any interest in the medications – prescription or otc – of Landrieu’s office, your comment is a non-sequitur, it doesn’t follow. My comment in contrast addresses the phones in the office, the main phone equipment, AND O’Keefe’s stated purpose.

    Do you think Joel that you might come up with an explanation that addresses those things as well? No?

    I have no idea the specific nature of the mischief he intended. I am certain it was not objective journalism. O’Keefe only does rigged situations where he can alter the outcome to achieve a preconceived position, faking material if necessary. And sadly, he gained the recognition he has because conservatives were too quick to accept anything bad about liberals without critical thinking about it.

    None of you seem eager to talk about the immunity deal over his felonious behavior in California. Why is that? It is as much a matter of official record as the Louisiana incident.

    Gee, I guess Mitch is doing here exactly what Joel was just decrying – assuming that liberals are bad / conservatives good on the basis of their politics. That would be a lot like Terry the other day decrying liberal ad hominem……..and then ignoring it when it was Swiftee launching the ad hominem.

    I have a problem gentlemen when you call for fairness without regard to politics, or decry a particular action or conduct — and then do exactly what you complain about.

  14. But incidents like this never happen.

    And the liberal mainstream democrat media certainly never cover them.

    Today’s Pioneer Press has the story.

    Um …

  15. Not “on the basis of their politics”, Doggie. Based on extensive observation over a long period of time. And it’s liberalism that is bad, not the liberals themselves. Sadly, it attracts some of the most abhorrent personalities in society.

  16. I find it ironic that Mitch thinks the most important part of this story is that there was not more mention made of the fact that O’Keefe didn’t intend to commit a second felony of wire tapping just the first felony of entering under false pretenses.

    Yet Mitch was not in any hurry to note the facts about O’Keefe when they reflected badly on him – the faking that he presented himself as a pimp when he did not, the claims that ACORN was helping them to operate a house of prostitution and import underaged illegal immigrants, when ACORN turned out on the full unedited tapes to be trying to persuade the ‘prostitute’ Hannah Giles was pretending to be to get out of prostitution and help her to do so, or to discourage her from any involvement with underaged illegals — or if they did come, and she wasn’t able to stop it, to get them into school, to help them learn the language, and to help them get documentation so they could get out of it. Or that instead of encouraging prostitution that ACORN was trying to resolve back taxes on illegal income – which all tax preparers are supposed to do. O’Keefe played on the compassion of people who tried very hard to be of help to someone they thought needed it, and then embarrassed them on national television by altering what was said to create a completely different representation of events. I’d be more impressed if Mitch were AS concerned that O’Keefe flat out lied about all of the ACORN offices he said were willing to help him with prostitution that in fact turned him away – something he initially denied but turned out to be true – just like it turned out to be true that he wasn’t in the ACORN offices claiming to be a pimp.

    Sorry, but this is just a little too unimportant – that O’Keefe got a deal claiming he wasn’t going to wiretap, just commit a felony deception to gain entry – while ignoring so very much other material about more important omissions, and that omission is purely on the basis of politics.

  17. The worst ‘theft of our freedoms’ I have seen Kermit has been from conservatives who were in favor of suspending habeus corpus or approving warrantless wiretapping. The worst political dirty tricks were from value-touting republicans. I don’t see a lot of connection between the values that conservatives espouse, and the actions they approve.

  18. Do you think Joel that you might come up with an explanation that addresses those things as well? No?

    Sure. It’s kind of obvious. His theory was that Landrieu’s staff was deliberately ducking phone calls, and a quick look at the phone system — to see if it was unplugged, say — was an obvious thing to do.

    …just like it turned out to be true that he wasn’t in the ACORN offices claiming to be a pimp.

    In the same sense that it isn’t true that Obama was born in Hawaii*. If you want to shift that to something like, “he didn’t wear his preposterous pimp outfit in the ACORN offices, and never said he did,” well, sure.
    ____________________
    * He was.

  19. Yet Mitch was not in any hurry to note the facts about O’Keefe when they reflected badly on him

    Nonsense. I merely disputed the notion that they did in fact reflect badly on him.

  20. DG,

    You are repeating Media Matters (C) Chanting Points. Maybe without really knowing it.

    The worst ‘theft of our freedoms’ I have seen Kermit has been from conservatives who were in favor of suspending habeus corpus or approving warrantless wiretapping.

    That might be true, if either of those outrages were aimed at anyone but non-nationals outside the US engaged in terrorism.

    Also, only if you ignore the 1994 Crime Bill and the 1996 Counterrorism Act, which brought us no-knock raids, wiretapping, property forfeiture for being arrested (not convicted!) of a drug crime, vastly-accelerated militarization of federal law enforcement, and a slew of other outrages that seem to have escaped the attention of an American Left that thought libertarianism was teh funnee until John Ashkkkroft was appointed AG.

    The worst political dirty tricks were from value-touting republicans.

    Er, right. Specifics, please? And bear in mind you’ll have to beat LBJ and the Dem-appointed J Edgar Hoover in scope and dirtiness.

    I don’t see a lot of connection between the values that conservatives espouse, and the actions they approve.

    No, I don’t suppose you do, but then the people who write your chanting points haven’t told you to see them yet, either.

  21. No one writes chanting points for me Mitch, as you should know.

    J Edgar belongs equally to Republican and Democratic administrations.

    Tricky Dicky Nixon was worse than LBJ, which is not to suggest I was pro-LBJ either.

  22. BTW – I happen to be in agreement with you about property forfeiture, no-knock raids and wire taps.

    Our constitution does not limit habeus to citizens – you should know your constitution better than that. And the overwhelming majority of those held that way were released and not found to be guilty of terrorism.

  23. No, DG, I know nobody writes them for you, but you do and Pen fall back on the left’s “conventional wisdom” on vastly more topics than you don’t, and in ways that are idea-for-idea identical to the institutional versions. Just saying.

    Hoover was appointed by FDR and did his dirtiest deeds under Truman and LBJ. Ike didnt’ like him much.

    Nixon was caught committing a bigger crime than LBJ, but LBJ was vastly more proficient at political dirty tricks.

    You avoided my question. Republican dirty tricks. Politics ain’t bean bag, and both parties do it, and saying “your side is worse” is kinda pointless in the great scheme of things. But you made a quantitative statement; please substantiate.

  24. BTW – I happen to be in agreement with you about property forfeiture, no-knock raids and wire taps.

    Well, that’s good – it’s just that the left was silent about them during the Clinton Administration, and refuses to recognize the corrosive effect they had and still have.

    Our constitution does not limit habeus to citizens – you should know your constitution better than that. And the overwhelming majority of those held that way were released and not found to be guilty of terrorism.

    It’s not limited to citizens, but it’s also been eliminated for foreign nationals caught in action against the United States in wartime. And it was Clinton’s Counterterrorism Act (actuall the “Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act”) of 1996 that most drastically narrowed application of Habeas Corpus in American criminal proceedings.

  25. “No one writes chanting points for me Mitch, as you should know.”

    Just a coincidence, eh deegee?

  26. The “words theft of our freedoms” I have noted (Who is Doggie quoting, I wonder?), was Progressive Woodrow Wilson throwing journalists in jail for dissent, reading private mail and telegrams, outlawing the German language as a “hate language”, using the federal government to spy domestically, putting people in internment camps without due process…

    FDR did pretty much the same thing. Were they “Conservatives”?

  27. What Kermit said.

    You can say that Republicans violated civil liberties more than the left – and even mean it, with a staight face. But you have to ignore a lot of history to do it.

    Fortunately, the Demcorats have an infotainment machine that is virtually impermeable to history.

  28. I wasn’t blogging during the Clinton administration, or I would have written something about it, LOL.

    I like my history straight up, without a spin machine from either side, thank you.

    Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday – may we all spend some time appreciating the real purpose of the day.

  29. Those in a huff about “warrantless”; ever fly on an airplane or cross the border? When they’re going thru your bags do you ever see the warrant……? That’s ok, but no warrants for foreign terrorists is bad?

  30. No one writes chanting points for me Mitch..

    I have to give this one to her. Deegee’s amusing little screeds have a dim-witted naivete that is unique. Her misspelled words, tortured syntax and grammar are like salt and pepper on a big, steaming plate of ignorance.

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