Like the Watergate burglars, only dumber

DSC02024.jpgRemember James O’Keefe, the guy who, about six months ago, made a name for himself by dressing like what a well-off, white suburban kid thinks that a pimp looks like, and telling ACORN workers that he wanted to open brothels in their neighborhoods? Well, he’s back in the news today. It seems as though he and some buddies ( Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan) tried to recreate that magic moment in Conservative history that was the Watergate burglary, and got busted in the process. They were apparently in New Orleans, dressed like phone company employees, trying to tap the phones of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

As one of the men arrested (Robert Flanagan) is the son of William J. Flanagan, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, I’m guessing that this wasn’t simply a prank, as some are trying to position it in the media. Someone brought O’Keefe, the master operative, to New Orleans. And someone put this crack team of dumb-asses together. It’ll be interesting to see what the FBI find when they search their homes and waterboard their friends. Right now, it’s looking like Republican activist and media mogul Andrew Breitbart may have been the man in charge, but it’s still too early to tell.

Anyway, what O’Keefe did was commit a felony on federal property, and he’ll most likely be going to prison for it. One can only hope that, when he gets there, he meets new friends who share his enthusiasm for racist buffoonery.

So, there you go, Republicans, you’ve got yourselves another martyr – another G. Gordon Liddy for the Twitter generation.

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41 Comments

  1. missypsi
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 1:12 am | Permalink

    I’ve never seen a picture of these morons before, this photo looks like it was taken at a UM “pimps and ho’s” frat party. Yes, sadly, such things exist.

  2. Michael Woodyard
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 6:23 am | Permalink

    g. gordon twitty

  3. TeacherPatti
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 8:48 am | Permalink

    Dear Douchebag,

    I teach in Detroit. This is a place, such that, if Mark & I picked you up and dropped your poseur ass off on the East Side, you would last about 10 seconds. On a good day. Maybe 20 on the West Side. Depends.
    Anywho, you don’t look like a real pimp. Not even close. You don’t even rise to the level of gang bang wannabee and that is extremely sad because hell, on a day, even *I* can manage to look like a wannabee.
    Have a nice time in jail and remember to go up to the biggest non-white person that you see on the first day and call him a “punk”. I’ve heard that this will send the message that you are not to be f’d with and make your jail stay much more pleasant.
    Love,
    TeacherPatti

  4. Larry Seven Larry
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 8:50 am | Permalink

    My guess is that the guy’s daddy, the U.S. Attorney, mentioned some possible shenanigans going on in the Senator’s office, possibly with regard to the reconstruction of New Orleans, and that the kid decided to call in the Douche Patrol to act on it.

  5. Larry Seven Larry
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 8:52 am | Permalink

    And, while I hate to joke about things like prison rape, I’d be interested to see how he likes working for a real pimp. I think it might be an experience that he found enlightening.

  6. Calmer than you
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 9:12 am | Permalink

    My guess is that, because this kid’s daddy is a U.S. Attorney, he’ll never see jail.

  7. Christine M
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 9:30 am | Permalink

    Wow bizarre because just before I came to your blog this morning I just emailed Senator Landrieu telling her how much I support her. She introduced legislation trying to create a program to help bring the Haitian orphans here to the states for foster care. I am hopeful we can possibly become part of this program here in Michigan. She’s amazing and one of the few senator’s who walks the walk by being an adoptive mother herself.

    At least G. Gordon is pretty smart an interesting. (I used to listen to his show sometimes on the radio in Maryland.)

  8. Kristin
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 9:59 am | Permalink

    Landrieu is awfully conservative, I’m surprised they even bothered with her.

  9. tommy
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 10:21 am | Permalink

    Who is the hottie with O’Keefe? Never seen ’em likethat on Michigan Ave.!

    As far as the real story goes – not really clear on the motive behind the crime. If I had to guess, I’d say that O’Keefe was trying to play gotcha ‘journalism’ to the ultimate. Get a Senator on tape saying something stupid (after probably setting up a phone call and asking leading questions) to bring her down.

    Follow the money to see if it leads anywhere or if anybody will start singing. Otherwise, better lube up that anus!

  10. Oliva
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 10:31 am | Permalink

    TeacherPatti, loved your post and thanks for the chuckle. Check out the TeaParty.org image of Obama as an O’Keefe-styled pimp (from a fund-raising appeal sent out yesterday):
    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/tea_party_fundraising_email_shows_obama_as_pimp.php?ref=fpb

  11. Curt Waugh
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 10:36 am | Permalink

    Just another fucking rich kid with nothing to do and a pocket full of “I don’t give a fuck about anybody because Daddy will bail me out”. This has NOTHING to do with politics. This kid should be handed a shovel and have his pasty ass thrown out in the sun to experience what real work feels like. Make this fucker dig dead bodies out of the ruins in Haiti. Let him know what real life is like for the rest of the world. Smug prick.

  12. Robert
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 12:39 pm | Permalink

    This is the culture of corruption and criminality that permeates the GOP. This piece of shit is the Karl Rove of the next generation. He’ll never do jail time. He’ll be cultivated, and in 20 years he, or someone just like him, will be the political director for another corrupt Republican president. Of course, until then, like with Karl Rove, he’ll appear to be a fringe element and an outcast.

  13. Burt Reynolds
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 1:07 pm | Permalink

    What he did in New Orleans was not a good idea. The videos he did with Planned Parenthood and ACORN were however brilliant.

  14. Oliva
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 1:41 pm | Permalink

    The ACORN “sting” scam was vulgar and misrepresentative, with a troubling result. This dunce’s Fox-style journalism is not one bit good for this country–such a dismal standard (anti-standard).

  15. Robert
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 1:48 pm | Permalink

    I liked what he did with ACORN too, Burt. Still, what he did in New Orleans wasn’t just “not a good idea.” It was seriously criminal and demonstrates a sociopathic disregard for the rights of others and for the rule of law.

    But the moral make-up of this guy is not unusual within the ranks of the right wing. It’s similar to what we saw just weeks ago here in Michigan from Michael Bastianelli of Westland and Harvey Robinson of Redford who casually and flagrantly engaged in election fraud.

    It is not that those who hold conservative views are morally defective. That’s not it at all. In fact, I think it is apparent that the professed “conservative” identity of these particular individuals is a self-delusional front. It is a superficial identity which is nothing more than a symptom of their utterly defective personalities.

    What IS true is that the many who share this common defect in moral character we see in O’Keefe, Bastianelli, and Robinson, fit in well within right-wing culture. Their sociopathic tendencies don’t alienate them from those environments. The prevalence suggests these environments even cultivate these morally defective personalities.

  16. IliveinYpsi.
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 2:23 pm | Permalink

    Senator Vitter (LA) (R) has a block on the Us Attorney to replace the little young Republicans daddy. He’s been blocking his replacement, since Obama took office. What guy.

    I Live In YPSI.

  17. Oliva
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 2:39 pm | Permalink

    Why I said “vulgar” was its subtext–the same horrible subtext that powers some of the Tea Party stuff and the Birthers and Joe Wilson as hero to some people. And if people get shamed into saying it’s not about race when it clearly is, then we’re just more screwed.

  18. Phelps
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 2:49 pm | Permalink

    The girl with him is Hannah Giles.

    She described herself as becoming “interested in exposing social injustice and the abuses of power” when she attended a conference in Washington, D.C. in 2007 while she was an intern at the National Journalism Center of the Young America’s Foundation.

  19. Steph
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 2:52 pm | Permalink

    I challenge you to watch those ACORN videos and not see them as racist. He might as well have been in blackface. It was disgusting.

  20. dragon
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 3:59 pm | Permalink

    Are Backpfeifengesicht and his Chickenhead finding out that pimpin’ ain’t easy? In the next episode of ‘when keepin’ it real goes wrong’ Sen. Mary Landrieu says “I don’t like people playin’ on my phone…”

  21. Milton
    Posted January 28, 2010 at 9:51 pm | Permalink

    24 year old Robert Flanagan, son of the acting US Attorney for Western LA, William Flanagan (Senator Vitter Held Up Acting U.S. Attorney Flanagan’s Replacement) will more than likely get a plea deal and turn on The other three, too bad.

  22. Tarm
    Posted January 29, 2010 at 9:08 am | Permalink

    It must have to do with the kid’s father that’s the US Attorney. If it’s true that Obama has been looking for a way to shake him loose, it makes sense.

    As or the ACORN video, all he proved is that they hire stupid people and don’t train them well. I could go to McDonalds and have people working behind the counter say equally ridiculous stuff. It’s not as though ACORN was teaching their people to set up brothels for underage girls. It wasn’t their policy to seek out pimps. The whole thing is completely overblown.

  23. Meta
    Posted January 29, 2010 at 9:38 am | Permalink

    From an article entitled “Did Louisiana’s Republican Elite Support the Landrieu Phone Squad?”

    The four conservative activists arrested for tampering with the phones of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu earlier this week have been linked to the Pelican Institute, a conservative New Orleans think tank. Pelican is a relatively new organization, but it appears to have strong ties to members of the state’s Republican elite, most notably Representative Charles Boustany.

    Though only one of the tamperers is from Louisiana, Pelican appears to have been the group’s home base there. The apparent ringleader, James O’Keefe — also the activist behind last September’s ACORN videotape — spoke at a Pelican Institute luncheon last week. Another one of the four, Robert Flanagan, is a paid blogger for Pelican (Flanagan is the son of the acting US attorney in Shreveport, Bill Flanagan). Pelican’s founder, Kevin Kane, blogs at BigGovernment, the site where O’Keefe first posted the ACORN video.

    more:
    http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/01/28/did-louisianas-republican-elite-support-the-landrieu-phone-squad/

  24. IliveinYpsi
    Posted January 29, 2010 at 9:49 am | Permalink

    Obama doesn’t have to look for any excuse to replace a US Attorney when his party gets in power. Most US Attorneys are swapped out. It’s perfectly legal, when a new party come in power.
    Vitter is holding it up by putting a hold on Obamas US Attorney replacement. It only takes 1 senator to hold any judge from being placed on the bench.

    I live in Ypsi.

  25. Robert
    Posted January 29, 2010 at 12:03 pm | Permalink

    Senator Vitter is a moral degenerate and an admitted felon, though has deliberately dodged the legal consequences. He’s also running for re-election this year. It doesn’t surprise me that a person of his moral and ethical make-up would be improperly blocking the replacement of another asshole who raised this criminal Flanagan.

  26. I live in Ypsi.
    Posted January 29, 2010 at 1:41 pm | Permalink

    Party of family values.

    I live in Ypsi.

  27. Posted January 30, 2010 at 12:30 pm | Permalink

    Oliva, those teabaggers! Would they have done that to a white president…just wondering…? A female president would have been a ho then….?

    On a semi-related note, I once dressed my dog up as a pimp for Halloween. It was a purple outfit and so I dubbed him, “Plum Silky”, after his doggie shampoo. He’s a gooddog.

  28. GOP spokesmodel
    Posted January 30, 2010 at 1:43 pm | Permalink

    It was a Democrat who was their target. This makes them nothing more than knuckleheaded pranksters.

  29. Posted January 30, 2010 at 2:10 pm | Permalink

    So, it would have been serious had they gone after a fellow Republican?

    But, as it was a Democrat they were attempting to spy on, it was just a childish prank.

    Your logic is flawless.

  30. GOP spokesmodel
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 11:24 am | Permalink

    Yes, Mark, and thank you.

    I should also add that these pranksters are just kids, though they are 5 to 6 years older than the imfamous Detroit Bomber Islamo-terrorist. That guy knew exactly what he was doing (except for the very last part where he was supposed to detonate).

    GOP pranksters are technically “kids” until they reach the age of 30.

  31. GOP spokesmodel
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 11:27 am | Permalink

    …or until they learn how not to get caught – whichever comes later.

  32. Peter Larson
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm | Permalink

    Since when is being 25 a “kid”? My real kid was 5 when I was 25. Last I checked, you get tried as an adult when you’re 18.

    Regardless of party affiliation, I hope he gets sent to prison. Less privileged people get sent to prison for a lot less. But most likely he won’t since prison isn’t for white GOPers.

    Fuck you.

  33. Gretchen Forshay
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 2:59 pm | Permalink

    I think GOP Spokesmodel was being sarcastic, Pete.

    Either that, or she’s an asshole.

  34. Blackjack
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 3:35 pm | Permalink

    I’ve noticed people have a hard time picking up on sarcasm on this site…

  35. Brackinald Achery
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 3:37 pm | Permalink

    I thought the sarcasm was pretty obvious, myself.

  36. Peter Larson
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 4:46 pm | Permalink

    Sorry, I was in a foul mood.

  37. Posted February 1, 2010 at 8:15 pm | Permalink

    Don’t worry. It happens to the best of us, Pete.

  38. Edward
    Posted February 2, 2010 at 10:28 am | Permalink

    Another article on O’Keefe and Breitbart that you might find of interest.

    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/breitbart_claim_jailed_okeefe_couldnt_access_attor.php

    They haven’t gone that far yet, but you can tell where they’re heading. They’re going to claim that O’Keefe was lured in, and the whole thing was a setup.

  39. Torence
    Posted March 28, 2010 at 8:17 pm | Permalink

    Looks like the little bitch is going to get off with a fucking misdemeanor – for trying to bug a U.S. Senator’s telephone. Can you believe that shit?

  40. Meta
    Posted March 9, 2011 at 10:29 am | Permalink

    O’Keefe claims another victim.

    NPR announced this morning that CEO and president Vivian Schiller has resigned. The organization has come under fire in recent months for incidents including the suspension of commentator Juan Williams and, most recently, a secretly recorded video in which NPR executive Ron Schiller made disparaging remarks about the tea party movement.

    http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/LI37JS/HD9PB9/FKXTXP/S5PGFS/R7HY3/FW/h

  41. French Sand
    Posted March 9, 2011 at 11:06 am | Permalink

    God forbid he secretly records Governor Snyder.

    One tough nerd? One savvy Klansman!

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