Thursday, January 28, 2010

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu Targeted by the Right - Deja Vu All Over Again?

"Goodness knows why God created Mississippi; so Louisiana wouldn't be last in everything."
- former Louisiana Rep. Pete Schneider(R)

"We've just about beat this dead horse to death."

- former State Rep. Bryant Hammett (D)

"I couldn't lose unless I was caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."
- former Governor Edwin Edwards (D),
longest serving Louisiana Governor
currently serving a 10 year sentence for racketeering

my thanks to Louisiapolitics for their collection of state political quotes on-line


Four men attempting to compromise the telephones in Senator Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office recently were arrested and charged with felonies.

One of the men, James O'Keefe, previously achieved a certain notoriety for his widely circulated ACORN video. What was less widely circulated was that O'Keefe inserted images of himself posing as a pimp into the original ACORN footage to make it appear that he was in ACORN offices in his pimp costume when he was not. O'Keefe has declined to make the original footage available so that the actual interactions between himself, fellow conservative activist Hannah Giles who was posing as a prostitute, and ACORN personnel could be examined to reveal what actually took place in the ACORN offices. This has not deterred some of the media, including Fox News, from broadly circulating the footage as factual.

This is not the first time that conservatives have gone after Senator Landrieu with dirty tricks. In the 1996 election, the narrowly defeated Republican candidate, Woody Jenkins, claimed massive voter fraud by the Democrats had taken place. Senator Landrieu's seating in the Senate after the election was delayed by the Republican majority in the Senate. The resulting investigation not only exonerated Senator Landrieu, it revealed that Jenkins had hired a felon, Thomas "Papa Bear" Miller. An FBI investigation, and a second investigation by the Senate, uncovered that Miller, who had previously pled guility to crimes that included attempted murder, had coached multiple witnesses to lie, claiming they had participated in voter fraud either by voting illegally, or by transporting vanloads of illegal voters to vote in multiple jurisdictions. It is fair to assert that this maneuver on the part of Jenkins campaign having backfired is still an active source of ill will in Louisiana politics.

Landrieu won reelection in 2002 in another high-profile election, defeating former Louisiana Commissioner of Elections, Republican Suzanne Haik Terrelll. Terrell went on to serve in the second term of the George W. Bush administration after George H. W. Bush, then President George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney had campaigned for Terrell against Landrieu. Terrelll had also been an elector for the 2000 Bush / Cheney ticket.

So,it is fairly safe to conclude that Senator Landrieu is a target that would appeal to O'Keefe to gain points, to "make his bones" with conservative Republicans. It will continue to earn him notoriety, building on his previous 'theme' of challenging ACORN, widely and wrongly blamed for voter registration fraud relating to the defeats of Republicans for office, and specifically to get the attention and approval of those Republicans who particularly object to the continuing success of Senator Landrieu in defeating the candidates they have supported. Without another 'stunt' to his credit, Landrieu will fade into oblivion as a one-trick pony, all the more so as the fakery associated with it is becoming better known.

The continuing connections between O'Keefe and the religious right,are every bit as close as those to the radical conservatives. O'Keefe's partner in the ACORN altered video, Hannah Giles, is the daughter of Doug Giles, the senior Pastor of the radical Christian ClashChurch. One of O'Keefe's associates in the Landrieu Office escapade, Joseph Basel, who describes his politics with the single word "Radical" on his Facebook page, is the son of Lutheran Minister Dan Basel of Mankato, Minnesota. Basel met O'Keefe through the Leadership Institute, in Arlington, Virginia.

Giles was awarded the Young Activist Award by the Young America's Foundation, which also has close connections to the origination of the Conservative Political Action Conference. The idea of posing as a prostitute to go undercover to damage ACORN was Giles' idea, which was key to her employment as a columnist by Biggovernment.com and Townhall.com, run by Andrew Breitbart, who also employ O'Keefe. I have found no repudiation for creating a deceptive, partially faked video on the part of the conservative right, but instead there has been consistent rewards and praise of their anti-ACORN efforts. There seems to be a slight 'backing away' from the current legal troubles of O'Keefe and his three alleged accomplices, but not outright condemnation.

O'Keefe, Basel and Giles all have connections to conservative Minnesota Republican politicians. Basel was the campaign manager for the 2006 election bid of Bill Ingebretsen for the Minnesota Senate. O'Keefe's ACORN video was the subject of a resolution co-sponsored by Congressman John Kline of Minnesota praising O'Keefe's "exemplary actions as government watchdogs". According to an article in the Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune, Giles was invited by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann to come to her DC office to speak with Minnesota reporters about ACORN - Bachmann is more than a little nuts (pardon the pun) on the subject of ACORN.

So, perhaps it is not so surprising that O'Keefe and Basel and their two associates would come up with this (alleged) scheme targeting Senator Landrieu's office. O'Keefe needed some new antic to dine out on in order not to drop off the radar of Fox News and lose his status to court the more conservative right. Given this bunch's connections to the Minnesota Conservative Republicans, it is not surprising that Basel would see tremendous potential for similar notoriety by joining O'Keefe; whereas Giles has perhaps already accomplished her goal of creating a niche for herself alongside her father among established radical Conservatives.

Or maybe she just doesn't look as good in a hard hat and reflective vest, less provocative clothing, as she does in skimpier prostitute costume?

1 comment:

  1. I have one question for conservative fans of O'Keefe - how do you contrast your applaud for O'Keefe with your reaction to Dan Rather?

    Rather was an accomplished journalist who put himself REALLY in harms way in Vietnam and Afghanistan, who was duped by a faked document which reported something that was likely true (namely that Bush had been AWOL). Rather DIDN'T create the forgery, but he DID fail to double and tripple check the document, and YOU ALL wanted his head. It ended his career under right-wing duress at CBS.

    The irony of THAT is that the standard of double-sourcing is one which was considered right and appropriate in the 1980's, yet it was the conservatves who argued that standard was unnecessary and encouraged changes in terms of general standards of practice in journalism to only require a single sourced standard.

    O'Keefe, by contrast to Rather, is a 24 year old who has NEVER put himself in harm's, and rather than being duped, MADE UP his story about ACORN, and committed a felony (probably and allegedly) to try to create MORE fiction in this break in.

    So how do you want it, righties? Was Rather OK, or was O'Keefe an extraordinarily WORSE example of bullsh*t yellow-journalism and hate?

    ReplyDelete