Not just ACORN: O'Keefe previously taped distribution of "good wife's guide" to women's studies class
Over the past week, media outlets have given significant coverage to conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe, who, with Townhall.com columnist Hannah Giles, dressed up as a pimp and prostitute and secretly videotaped ACORN employees providing them with counseling. But this is not the first time O'Keefe has engaged in such activities in support of conservative causes; as a Rutgers University undergraduate, O'Keefe videotaped a classmate distributing to a Women in Culture and Society lecture a handout that emphasized that a "good wife always knows her place."
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October 2005: O'Keefe videotapes distribution of "good wife's guide" to Women in Culture and Society class
O'Keefe's magazine says he was "chased ... out" after he and a colleague "attempted to distribute literature." In an article for its October 2005 issue, The Centurion -- a Rutgers University conservative magazine at which O'Keefe served as editor-in-chief -- reported:
[Centurion reporter] Greg Walker and James O'Keefe attempted to distribute literature (below left) in Professor Munem's Women in Culture and Society lecture. They felt that this literature would be of interest since it involves one aspect of the role of women in our culture and society. However, Professor Munem felt that the literature was "inappropriate" for her class and chased them out. She accused them of interrupting her lecture even though they had asked - and had been granted - permission to enter, and had done so immediately prior to the start of the lecture. Considering that many other organizations, from the Eastern Service Workers' Association to Free Palestine to NJPIRG, are allowed to distribute their literature unmolested, we feel that her actions constituted ideological discrimination.
Article Walker and O'Keefe distributed was from a 1955 edition of Housekeeping Monthly titled "The good wife's guide." The handout as posted on The Centurion's website is a copy of a May 13, 1955, article in Housekeeping Monthly titled "The good wife's guide." The article urges readers, among other things, to "[b]e a little gay and a little more interesting for him" and not to "ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment" because "he is the master of the house" and "[y]ou have no right to question him." The admonition "[a] good wife always knows her place" is circled.
Centurion article urges readers to "Watch the Video" at its website. The Centurion article names the professor who "chased" O'Keefe and Walker "out," Bahia M. Munem, the recipient of "This Month's Centurion Award" for "Partisan Feminist Hypocrisy" and urges readers to "Watch the Video at www.rucenturion.com." In the video, O'Keefe tells Munem, "We just want to inform women, like, we just want to inform them, and we want to add to the diversity of the dialogue." When asked for his name and school, O'Keefe gives his name as "Tom Smith" and says that he attends "Worker's College."
My gripe is that he, probably illegally, provided dubiously produced video tape to one cable channel that is the propaganda outlet for all things Republican.
If he did honest work, why is he not every TV outlet being praised as a hero? It is not like other channels did not ask.
Two more gripes:
1. ACORN dismissed the employees shown in the video immediately without any due process. Why?
2. Congress voted to cut off ANY funding to ACORN based on these videos only. Why?
I do not know completely what ACORN does except that Republicans hate it for whatever it does.
ACORN played a pretty big role in getting a lot of people to register and get out and vote for Obama during the 2008 election because even though they claim to be non=partisan everyone knows they're pro-liberal so one has to also question whether they should be receiving millions of dollars in funding from the government.
It's like...they'd done it before....I wonder why people are outraged?
You saw what Fox wanted you to see. Stop being such a dupe. You're asking why some people were willing to help commit an imaginary crime. The only crime committed was possibly the illegal filming.
No crime occurred but it was not for lack of intent.
By Fox News' logic, these "reporters" could in theory join the mafia and kill, only to prove the mafia was bad, without accepting any of the blame. Fox, though, is creating these activists to be victims of the mainstream media, because those who have worked hard to be trusted by America are asking these two young people to prove themselves.
Their response is indicative of their ethics... O'Keefe had written that he refuses to respond to CNN because he does not want to participate in their "hit job". As the Republicans put it so bluntly for the past several years, if you have nothing to hide, then you wouldn't mind cooperating...
Which would have only been done by ACORN following through on this. I know what you're saying. tbone, if the ACORN employees were buying the actors bit, and if they filed paperwork, there was shady tax advice, but probably not much more outside the lines than most people get at the tax shop at the mall.
I'm talking more about the imaginary prostitution ring that the Fox-suckers here keep focusing on. I don't think anybody had enough evidence to turn in the filmmakers on any charges, it would have been pretty flimsy evidence even coming from a more convincing looking pair of masqueraders.
Yes, the right is pretty much "winning" this war but; the problem is that it isn't based in reality. Everyone rubber necks at a crash scene and that is pretty much what is going on here. People turn on the T.V. every night, just to hear the latest. They don't care about truth, just whether they are entertained or not.
Who's next? Anyone or anything that has any connection with Obama or the democrats. The idea is to create the illusion that they are worse than repubs. Then in 2010 they can get their seats back. Again, not base in reality and they don't care, as long as it works.
President Beck? Well, let's hope we don't sink that far (although there was St. Reagan), my biggest fear is that someone like Palin will be elected. GW was bad enough. Someone with the intellectual capacity and world view of Palin would pretty much be another nail in the coffin.
It became obvious to me by the second video release that this was a carefully planned, but the third video showed a campaign as strategically conceived as a chess match.
Who funded O'Keefe for two months? Airfare, hotels, per diem expenses in several remote locations costs a lot of money.
Consider the strategy to release the tapes slowly to draw in ACORN officers and other news organizations who were initially critical of the veracity of the story. O'Keefe and Giles refusing to speak to other media or answer questions about any ACORN offices who avoided getting punked. Handing the story to the only news organization who would be complicit in following a gameplan more closely resembling a marketing strategy for a major product rollout. It was a safe bet that FOX would not vette anyone or act to confirm any aspect of the story, thus guaranteeing a populist and media maelstrom that would taint everyone in the mainstream and inflict the most damage to whatever or whom ever this story touched.
This was a right wing marketing coup that was more than happenstance. These were brilliant tactical maneuvers as means to an end...to destroy ACORN and anyone linked to them. The conservative machine has scored a major win and upped the stakes for us all. There will be more.
I would say let it alone, even many Democrats in Congress want their funding stopped. ACORN is probably toast. Fighter a more nobler cause MMfA.
As usual, Charlie Brown, you miss the point. It's the level of false outrage by Fox News and hate radio over a few people talking in a room. It doesn't match the "crime".
The videographers went to multiple ACORN locations. Then they began showing their tapes on FoxNews. They didn't make any new tapes, but they have been releasing them piecemeal. That's not what a news network should do. The tapers haven't gone on any other news networks - in fact, they have broken appts to talk to CNN and others. That's not the way people interested in doing good behave. That's the way people trying to put one over on us behave. They hide from real scrutiny. That involves FoxNews and the tapers both.
You're right. Now it's on the MSM and in the halls of Congress. Guess you missed that.
ho-humming over underage sex slaves
Correction. "ho-humming" over IMAGINARY underage sex slaves. Glad to see you're not concerned about the REAL sex slaves Blackwater was providing to its contractors.
You have to appreciate the advice to "let it go" and just abandon ACORN. Of course, this would mean that the GOP only needs to find 3 or 4 employees or members out of any organization of thousands to be in the same room as a right wing spy mentioning some fictional illegal activity, and it would be expected that the entire organization be dismantled.
Sounds pretty Soviet Union or Orwellian to me, but as long as we have some people "ho-humming" over undercover propaganda missions to undermine organizations for political reasons, I'm glad MMFA is reporting on these guys.
I'll take care of one of them for ya. Fake voter registrations? Yep, they did exist. Except Mickey Mouse and Harry Potter DIDN'T VOTE. Got that. There was no voter fraud.
The fraud was perpetrated ON ACORN, not BY ACORN.
Please make a note of it.
Seeing that this person thought it was clever and instructive to hand out that biased, offensive article from the 1955 magazine, and thought it appropriate to publicly humiliate the professor who stood in his way, I think exposing that behavior is instructive in understanding this man a little more.
FoxNews is trying to portray this guy as a do-gooder helping our nation uncover bad guys. This is more evidence that this portrayal doesn't fit the man very well. Other evidence has been gathered too. For example, he has only talked with FoxNews - if he truly had a news story, he'd allow other news organizations to see it and talk to him. He hasn't released the unedited tapes. He and FoxNews have shown them piecemeal, although no new tapes have been created since the first tape was released. They have edited the tapes to make ACORN look as bad as possible, and they haven't included exculpatory scenes from the video. They illegally taped people, basically entrapping them. They apparently didn't go to the local cops with these tapes either. This is another piece of the puzzle.
If you think this is such a small deal, why are you so obsessed with trying to denigrate the efforts of MMFA in this case?
Go forth. It's what you people do so well.
What I find pretty sad is the level of outrage over a conversation a few people had in an office.
Heck, I was joking with a friend of mine about how I'd like to have taken a machine gun to those treasonous teabaggers last Saturday. Hope he wasn't secretly taping me.
Wow, that's some creative spin for explaining how underage sex slaves can be considered dependents.
Of course, since they're actually imaginary, RO can have all he/she wants.
Pointing out the flaws of Andrew Breitback or the videographers and their potential personal biases is not off limits. It also doesn't remove the crimes, if any, of the ACORN folks.
Trying to deflect attention from one set of offenses to your opponent's offenses is often the tactic used by those on the right, and isn't what MMFA is doing here.
Wow, Tommy, are you really framing MMFA as the one trying to demonize the other side instead of discussing the issues on this topic?
Is that dog of yours invisible to you, because I think everybody else can see it pretty well.
The barking you hear are liberals scrambling.
Though this guy is apparently a conservative, clearly his motive is more to screw with people than it is to be an investigative reporter.
I've only seen one conservative do anything but completely ignore Blackwater/KBR related questions, and that's only because he was nutty enough to complain that Blackwater was getting judged too quickly.
I would say try a third to derail the focus off ACORN. There is always Ronald Reagan, that is always in the backpocket.
Find a topic on them and then you won't look ridiculous.
Most of the leftys have given their opinion here about the employees of ACORN, and support cleaning house.We're just not being suckered into the media witch hunt.
There are credible allegations against the mostly white,wealthy, right wing Christians in Blackwater running actual underage sex rings.
The lower income, mostly black, and I assume more liberal, employees of ACORN are accused of not arresting people who mentioned imaginary prostitution operations in the course of pretending to ask for tax and housing advice.
Which one is the more important story to you, Tommy?
I don't get how you're admitting at failing on two counts, and asking to bring up Reagan, though. What does he have to do with it?
So yes, in that context it is only a distraction. If that is too complicated for you then perhaps you better stop posting. You can comment on it all you'd like, but until it becomes the topic, I won't. I can simplify it anymore for you.
As impressive as it is transparent.
Would it make you more comfortable if I stopped posting? Phony.
Do you think your posts make me uncomfortable? I was just trying to save you from embarrassing yourself even further by not understanding simple off topic rules provided to you by this MMfA. But if you'd rather keep at it, by all means.
No matter, you answered it inadvertently.
Better watch that deflective, impulsive lying Col. It doesn't help you.
Enjoy your evening.
Enjoy yours as well. Sorry if I shook you up too much. It's just so much fun to watch.
The republicans are having their mouth organ (fox & talk radio) distract their followers from what really matters in america and all of the wreckage from Bush/Cheney.
Minimize what? A few employees were caught in some stupid procedures, by a dishonest scammer with an agenda, and you think people who can see that are minimizing what exactly?
Something you admit you don't care about?
I believe you really do not understand how this works, having convinced yourself that you're fair & balanced and above the fray.
There are no crimes committed, except possibly the illegal filming. This is being presented in the media as evidence that ACORN is some diabolical criminal enterprise, but that doesn't interest you. The fact that some people aren't comfortable with this Soviet-era style media taking hold here, you find that "hysterical"?
If somebody with an axe to grind were to undertake this sort of sleazy operation on you, your family, or your business, I hope you wouldn't be asking anybody for any sympathy or justice.
Down Col. Down!! Don't forget that only the right wing gets to use the "Soviet-era style (fill in the blank)" talking point.
Actually I just tend to ignore Righton. He isn't here to debate, he is here to stir the pot. If he were willing to listen to factual arguments it would be different.
As far as ACORN, it is probably best that funding is put on hold, for now. Give them a chance to clean house, (been doing that) and revamp their procedures.
As we all know, they actually work with the local government on voter registration issues and follow the law explicitly and turn in any employee's who violate the law.
Notice that I asked ROT about seeing himself in a similar situation, and he had to modify it to the version that the man on the radio told him about, including non-fictional underage sex slaves, and some mind-reading about what the ACORN employees "absolutely believed".
I agree that funding could be put on hold, not because of any evidence of widespread problems, but because it's apparent that the Obama administration is not going to get away with the lack of scrutiny the previous one did from the media.
Yeah we are scrambling all over your misguided and sadly uninformed thoughts.
Who are the messengers?
One thing is for certain... they are not the citizen journalists Fox News makes them out to be...
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/goodwife.asp
The document may have been a mash up of information from several sources and may have been created to make contemporary values appear enlightened by comparison or by those holding the opposite point of view that we have become hopelessly corrupt and jaded and have lost our way.
In either case what is interesting to me is that we get exercised by these things and feel that we must respond in kind. We have lost our ability to talk rationally about almost anything cultural in our society and feel the necessity to create justification for our actions and positions that are fabricated out of whole cloth. Obama is a alternately a socialist and a facist (if anyone tossing these term around even knows the distinction). All tea party activitists and town hall attendees are neandrethals and Ludites (a good number may be but some have real concerns about the size of government and its role in our society).
What I hope is that at some point we will all discover that the Glen Becks, Rush Limbaughs and ACORNS and MOVEON.Orgs serve their own agendas and get in the way of any kind of civil discourse in our country and that we should collectively ignore them so that we can get on with real business of fashioning a just and sane society through informed civil discourse.
Is that too much to ask?
That you consider them comparible can be considered a harbringer of future posting far far away from civil discourse.
When some of our bad boys in the media get it right on the occasion this is duly noted and acknowledged here.
We are also not all progressive/liberals here. Some upright conservatives post here regularly.
The one where they faked out Rutgers into banning Lucky Charms cereal from the campus by assuming the role of aggrieved and offended Irishmen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh3WUnFiEJ4
Hilarious that they got away with it.
Shock/gonzo journalists for sure..
Aren't Breitbart or Fox News obliged to turn this damning evidence over to the authorities?
Why have none of the principles told the coppers about this pimp and prostitute?
Are they harboring the criminals? Are they aiding and abetting the crimes? Is there a conspiracy?
This is some serious stuff and its scaring my kids.
That aside, does anyone seriously belief anyone at ACORN believed either he or his accomplice were anything short of buffoons pulling a stunt? From what I've seen, they make Drew Barrymore look like a GREAT Oscar caliber actress, which is no mean feat.
Randy