James O’Keefe’s Kinship With Anti-Semites, Professional Racists, Proponents Of Aryanism

Hat Tip To Paulette for this heads up.

The more we learn of James O’Keefe the more disturbing the portrait of him becomes.  Up until the story below I thought James O’Keefe was just a young guy who was experimenting with youthful energy and got caught up in things over his head.  It can happen.  The wire-tapping attempt of a U.S. Senator’s office was truly ridiculous, but I suspect there was some leeway granted to him by the public for clearly having more testosterone than brains.   I think that was well established.   But now it is discovered that James O’Keefe’ hangs out with anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism.  The latest news about this conservative ‘big-wig’ wanna-be moves him from the ‘irksome’ column to the ‘repugnat’ one.  If James O’Keefe wanted to be known, well, he is about to get his wish. The next move will be up to the Republican Party to either throw him overboard based on the creep he is now understood to be, or hold onto him and reap the political consequences.   Notice to both James O’Keefe and the GOP:   There is no room in America for racists and anti-Semites. 

   

James O’Keefe, photographed at a white nationalist conference by One People’s Project.

 

His right-wing admirers don’t seem to mind that O’Keefe’s short but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment. Now an activist organization that monitors hate groups has produced a photo of O’Keefe at a 2006 conference on “Race and Conservatism” that featured leading white nationalists. The photo, first published Jan. 30  on the Web site of the anti-racism group One People’s Project, shows O’Keefe at the gathering, which was so controversial even the ultra-right Leadership Institute, which employed O’Keefe at the time, withdrew its backing. But O’Keefe and fellow young conservative provocateur Marcus Epstein soldiered on to give anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism an opportunity to share their grievances and plans to make inroads in the GOP. 

 

James O’Keefe Makes For Sunday’s Best Newspaper Story

Ouch!

James O’Keefe wanted headlines.  He wanted to be known.  He wanted to show what conservatives are all about.  He got what he wanted.  (Does this news qualify for his year-end Christmas letter to the distant cousins?)

From left, James O’Keefe III, Stan Dai, Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel.

Today James O’Keefe and his fellow felons-to-be are on the front page (above the fold) of the New York Times with a color photo and long story about their attempts to make a splash using media, and their version of ‘journalism’ to further conservative thinking.

They got fame with their bungled wire-tapping scheme of a U.S. Senator’s office, but also now need legal advice as they start to ‘lawyer up’.  For the rest of us we get more cheap theatre from the same larger crowd that brought us Watergate.  (Maybe FOX TV can give these guys a reality show!  They could share a life-size Ann Coulter look-a-like blow-up doll, read the Wall Street Journal in their boxers, plot how to steal Senator Byrd’s wheel-chair, and make prank phone calls to liberal radio talk show hosts…..)

James O’Keefe III, the guerrilla videographer, advised conservative students this month that they needed to start taking more risks.

“The more you put yourself out there and you take those calculated risks,” he told the Web site CampusReform.org, which works to foster conservative activism on college campuses, “you’re actually going to get opportunities.”

Just days later, Mr. O’Keefe, 25, took his own advice, but did not get quite the opportunity he expected.

He and three other men — including a 24-year-old associate, Joseph Basel, who was interviewed alongside Mr. O’Keefe by the Web site — were arrested and charged with a federal felony, accused of seeking to tamper with the office telephone system of Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana. Two of them were impersonating repairmen in the senator’s New Orleans office and were caught after being asked for identification.

Mr. O’Keefe said Friday that the four men had been trying to determine whether Ms. Landrieu was avoiding constituent complaints about the Senate health care bill after her phone system was jammed in December. (Her office said no calls had been intentionally avoided.) On reflection, he said in a statement, “I could have used a different approach to this investigation.”

But that approach was precisely the kind that he and others have been perfecting for years, a kind of gonzo journalism or a conservative version of “Candid Camera.”

Republicans Starting To Shun James O’Keefe

What a great one-night stand it was for all concerned.  But come the light of day James O’Keefe will need to hustle up a new gig.    Seems his old playmates are moving on.

How ironic. James O’Keefe — hailed as a hero by Republicans for bringing down ACORN and forcing Democrats to cut ties with the community organizing group — is now a persona non grata within the Republican party. That is, of course, after his arrest yesterday for alleging trying to interfere with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office phones.

Today, Republicans are running away from O’Keefe.

• O’Keefe was supposed to be the keynote speaker at a Salt Lake County GOP fundraiser on Feb. 4. But county GOP Chairman Thomas Wright told the Salt Lake Tribune: “We’ll be announcing a new speaker shortly.”
• Rep. Pete Olson, R-Tex., is on the defense for introducing a resolution honoring O’Keefe for exposing ACORN. He told the Hill that he doesn’t condone unlawful behavior…….”

In case you wonder what this is all about here is the concise read.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Mr. O’Keefe, who had traveled to New Orleans and delivered a speech Thursday, admitted to helping plan and coordinate the scheme.

Late Monday morning, according to an FBI affidavit, Messrs. Flanagan and Basel, dressed in blue work shirts, fluorescent green vests and construction hard hats, entered Sen. Landrieu’s offices and told a staffer they had come to fix the phone lines. By then, Mr. O’Keefe already had arrived at the offices, according to the FBI.

After Mr. Basel examined a phone in the office, he asked for access to the phone closet to work further, the FBI said. The men were sent to a federal General Services Administration office elsewhere in the building, where they were asked to produce identification. They said they left it in their vehicle, according to the affidavit.

They were arrested shortly thereafter by federal marshals. The U.S. attorney’s office didn’t say why the men allegedly sought to tamper with the phone lines.

Something tells me it was not  a Sunday school assignment.