James O'Keefe is a credit to his ideology.

A man in a bar purchased a drink for a special education teacher, Alissa Ploshnick, attending a conference on special education law. Over the course of the conversation, which the man was secretly recording, Ploshnick never mentioned how, back in 1997, she’d thrown herself between her special education students and an out-of-control van and suffered severe injuries that still pain her today, nor did she mention the letter she received from President Clinton praising her for her actions that afternoon. She did inform the man that the state of tenure in New Jersey is such that she once witnessed another teacher—one who is not an award-winning, student-lives-saving special education teacher—yell “You nigger!” at a student, and that this other teacher was merely demoted.

This man, who had plied her with drinks, as a professional journalist should, and recorded her words without her knowledge, as a professional journalist should, then brought the tape of Ploshnick recounting what happened to another teacher to James O’Keefe, who then posted it, with captions, on the Project Veritas Youtube channel. The relevant moment looks like this:

In response to criticism that followed Ploshick being suspended and docked a pay raise for recounting what another teacher had said, Project Veritas posted a video in which it prefaced her comments with this:

That’s right: O’Keefe and company claim that the word “nigger” is so volatile that there is no context capable of mitigating its appearance in response to a video in which they captioned someone thus:

No context can mitigate its appearance, it seems, unless that context is “targeting an award-winning, student-lives-saving special education teacher for matters of political convenience.” Put differently:

If you believe anything even resembling the title of this post, you are a terrible person and never to be taken seriously again.

Comments

[Tom]

The worst thing is that O'Keefe is only 26. We're going to be stuck with this asshole for a very, very long time. How long until he's a GOP Presidential Candidate's Campaign Manager?

[SEK]

How long until he's a GOP Presidential Candidate's Campaign Manager?

It's like the ever-increasing pace of the news cycle, I think. It took Nixon's cronies a decade or so to remove the stain, but these guys? One half-effective Google bomb and they're back.

[That Guy]

Failure to preface and pretext, and, even worse, a failure to inform someone that something they said is on the record. In general, I think that the state of journalism in the US is lacking, which — along with the internet, which provides the same antics for less than a cable subscription or, for that matter, a newspaper subscription — is what is killing American mass media outlets.

This is the problem with sound bite politics too. We've forsaken context, and, in doing so, we've forsaken the overall message in favor of the caveats, the nuances, and the appealing points out of context. It's a case of mass media attention deficit disorder spurred on by cable news, the "blogosphere," and a journalistic culture that is all too willing to participate in the race to the bottom.

[Mary Stack]

O’Keefe is a jackass but I think less of Acorn. The creep who taped her without her knowledge and consent, needs to be indentified. Her professional accreditation matters little to me, the invasion of a private person's anonymity is despicable.

[FJ]

Wow. America has hit a new low.

[Numad]

"O’Keefe is a jackass but I think less of Acorn."

You repudiate O'Keefe but nonetheless seek to exploit the stigma he created through intellectual fraud.

No surprise there.

[Ahistoricality]

O’Keefe is a jackass

Michael Moore is a jackass, Newt Gingrich is a jackass, Larry Summers is a Jackass, Kelsey Grammer is a jackass. James O'Keefe aspires to be pond scum.

but I think less of Acorn

Based on what? Until the unedited tapes are released, there's no reason to believe they did anything wrong. All they did was talk to him, answering inocuous questions into which he dubbed incendiary questions. Their failure to physically assault him suggests Ghandian restraint.

[Karl Steel]

Based on what?
Seriously, based on what?

[Mary Stack]

Numad, your logic is unsophisticated. Take the names out of it, and think of it based on facts. A did not cause B to engage in illegal behavior, and unquestionably B engaged in such activity before meeting A, while meeting, and after meeting A. Ergo, B is a shitty organization independent of A, and frankly if it wasn't A exposing B, it would have occurred anyway.
Now A is a piece of shit, who engages in stupid behavior; criminal? maybe. Nonetheless, he is one person who participated in a despicable act by distributing it after the fact. Thus, less disdain. I hold that POS who made the film responsible.

Ahistoricality,

In 2009 O'keefe was 23, and yes a jackass and I agree with your assessment of the others but hell, they should know better!

Please with the defense of Acorn. Organizations that work with the poor need to be preventing malevolent behavior, not giving How-to classes.

[GeoX]

So you refuse to acknowledge the dishonesty of the Acorn sting and insist, in spite of no evidence whatsoever, that they were in the wrong.

Okay! Right-wing thinking in a nutshell.

[Ahistoricality]

Organizations that work with the poor need to be preventing malevolent behavior, not giving How-to classes.

There is no credible evidence that this occurred. None. Zero. Zip. I know you won't believe any of us, Ms. Stack, but it's the truth. It's hard to let go of an idea once it's settled in your mind - this isn't a slur, but a basic truth about all of us - but it's worth the effort, so we don't look ridiculous.

[Numad]

Mary Stack,

"Numad, your logic is unsophisticated. Take the names out of it, and think of it based on facts. A did not cause B to engage in illegal behavior, and unquestionably B engaged in such activity before meeting A, while meeting, and after meeting A."

My logic is sophisticated enough. Where do you get the information that establishes this unquestionable fact? Actual investigation and review into the matter hasn't backed it up. On the contrary, a real unquestionable fact about this is that O'Keefe's video had been heavily and maliciously edited (including to the point of omitting some less than favorable reactions by employees to O'Keefe's idiotic playacting altogether.)

O'Keefe didn't "expose" ACORN, but rather contrived video footage to make it seem as though he had. It was intellectual fraud, and it turns out it's not out of place on O'Keefe's resume. The only connection between O'Keefe and ACORN is that the latter has been the victim of the former.

And yes, "jackass" is indeed an understatement.

[Donald]

Not for nothing, but there is an entire industry built on the idea that the letters strung together that form nigger is out and out bigotry. Not to mention niggardly.

So you know...