"ACORN videos were propaganda"
December 12, 2009 9:16 am ET by Eric Boehlert
From his recent Salon column, Joe Conason details what former Massachusetts AG Scott Harshbarger discovered about the undercover ACORN videos made by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. The discovery came as part of Harshbarger's larger, and often critical, review of ACORN's practices. (Read the report here.)
Conason notes [emphasis added]:
To assess the meaning and accuracy of the videotapes, Harshbarger and his colleagues did the job that journalists ought to have done from the beginning. They interviewed ACORN employees. Later, they reviewed both the tapes and the transcripts made available on BigGovernment, a Web site owned by Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing impresario behind Giles and O'Keefe.
What Harshbarger discovered, as his report's Appendix D reveals, is that much of what appeared on Fox News Channel and in other media outlets, let alone on right-wing Web sites, was not what had actually occurred in the ACORN offices -- and that exculpatory material was edited out of the tapes.
Question: Is Andrew Breitbart's site Big Government ever going to release all the unedited ACORN tapes? And if not, what is he hiding? At the very least, why won't Breitbart detail exactly which tapes were edited and which exculpatory material was cut?
UPDATED: The Harshbarger report seems to demolish the idea that Breitbart even practices journalism. Unless this new brand of conservative 'journalism' includes deceptively editing hidden-camera videos and then refusing to produce the original tapes when discrepancies are highlighted.
UPDATED: Conason also note the following:
Contrary to the claims of right-wing critics, who complain that Harshbarger failed to interview any of ACORN's adversaries, the lawyer and his colleagues were rebuffed when they tried to speak with O'Keefe and Giles. Amy Crafts, a Proskauer associate who co-authored the report, told me that she made several efforts to contact the video producers both in person and through their attorneys.
What are these people hiding?
UPDATED: More from Conason:
On Oct. 21, [Harshbarger's associate Amy] Crafts said, she was barred from the press conference held by O'Keefe and Giles at the National Press Club in Washington, even though she promised not to ask any questions.
Why were those Acorn workers enabling, engaging with, or cooperating with a hooker and a pimp seeking help with a repulsive enterprise?
At the end of one video the workers, who have several times referred to an Acorn seminar on purchasing property, that they represent as mandatory prerequisite to filing a loan application, inform Giles and O'Keefe that they must pay $150.00 tuition fee to attend the seminar.
It occurs to me that those women may have been acting upon three possible instructions from ACORN management or policies regarding first responders acting, in effect, as customer service representatives:
1. You will be dealing with ALL types of people and each should be treated respectfully and with courtesy.
2. Do nothing to actively discourage "customers" from seeking services or membership in programs requiring membership fees. In otherwords---products.
3. Enroll customers in revenue producing programs wherever appropriate.
This, it seems to me, would be consistant with instructions to any number of retail establishment representatives, such as a cosmetics counter or a gun shop.
Remember that at no time, on the videos, did the ACORN employees engage in an illegal act. And remember that Giles and O'Keefe left the premises without filing any paperwork. Had Giles and O'Keefe paid the $150.00 and merely attended the seminar, that probably would not qualify as an illegal act by ACORN.
No reasonable person, including me, condones the casual participation of those employees in serious discussions about a proposed illegal prostitution ring. But is it not possible, that their foolishness was based upon a lack of training in adhering to ACORN policies or a very poor understanding of their responsibilities as representatives of ACORN?
If you think about this a bit, the flaws in this argument may outweigh its merits. Either way, If I had observed their conduct myself, without a video expose', I would have fired those employees for an egregious lack of judgement that represented a
threat to the stated mission of ACORN. As it stand, this controversy is symptomatic of the horrendous lack of formal organization within the structure of ACORN that is indeed and undeniably a part of the public record.
Let's assume (and it's a stretch) that the ACORN employees were actually buying the pimp & ho act. No sane person is going to interrupt their appointment with suspected criminals to call the police. It's ridiculous. They would collect information and contact police after the "suspects" were gone.
And I agree completely with your point that this is a business, and employees are generally trained to be very accommodating to potential clients/customers. The idea that some office employee is required to go into crime fighter mode at the (very unconvincing) mention of some potential future crime can only seem reasonable to those who really want to believe.
FYI, many radio personalities such as right wing talk radio get bonuses that depends on their ratings. Now there's a calamity influenced by money!
The community that MMfA has developed here has much to be proud of and I for one applaude many of you.
We will not go quietly into that good night!
I'm not sure if we're born with a Bullsh*t Detector, or if we learn to develop it, if it's nature or nurture, but some people just don't seem to have theirs functioning.
There were a lot of right wing posters here who bought into the ACORN propaganda with everything they had, and who called anybody who didn't condemn the organization, based on this scam, ideologues.
Of course, reality was just the opposite, the pimp & ho ploy was tailor-made for those blind followers who are constantly starving for any reasons, real or manufactured, to hate Obama,"The Left", liberals, minorities, etc.
They couldn't specify what the crimes were that they were demanding punishment for. They couldn't give any rational explanations as to why they didn't care about military contractors ( who receive as much in our tax dollars in a day as ACORN does in a year) accused of actual child prostitution. They refused to see that the video scammers were lying and hiding the unedited videos.
They're the same people who deny Climate Change and evolution, they have their minds made up on page one, and no amount of logic is going to change that. They're interesting to watch, for those of us fascinated by abnormal brain activity, I only wish they didn't get to vote.
I am less concerned with them voting as I am concerned about the complacent rational Democrats and Independents who DON'T vote!
Even Jon Stewart got hoodwinked into this deception.
AND the TMZ political press that praised O'Keefe & Breitbart: the editors @ Politico, are now on the Pulitzer board.
OMG!
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Also.
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Boom! There it is.
Today is gonna be a good day for trolling.
From Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA):
...a liberal, Clinton-appointed activist Judge has ruled to usurp the prerogatives and authority of the United States Congress. This left-wing activist Judge is setting a dangerous precedent that left-wing political organizations plagued by criminal accusations have a constitutional entitlement to taxpayer dollars.
So, de-funding an organization not accused of any wrongdoing, based on some propaganda videos is just fine, but observing The Constitution is a "dangerous precedent"?
Right wingers sure do hate America.
That's wingnut for "made a ruling that we don't like".
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Come on, people. Acorn, climate emails, etc. - the right is punking every single one of you.
Is it really THAT hard to get some salacious undercover footage of Beck or Hannity? Evidence that Rush Limbaugh is using speed to lose weight? A backup of Fox's exchange servers? Sarah Palin's blackberry? I mean, the right can't be THAT tough to socially engineer.
But no, the left just sits back and cries and points at the big bully. And the bully laughs at you. The right pushes you around because they can.
Grow a pair.