Associated Press
Ordinarily, videos from far-right activist James O'Keefe are easy to ignore. His alleged exposes have struggled under scrutiny in recent years, and when there's word of a new O'Keefe "scoop," the appropriate response is generally to roll one's eyes.
But even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case, the activist actually caught a Democrat doing something wrong.
The son of Representative James P. Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, has resigned from his father's campaign after being shown in an undercover video discussing a plan to cast fraudulent ballots.
The son, Patrick Moran, had been a field director for the campaign. He said Wednesday that he had not taken the conversation seriously and was humoring the man who was secretly recording him, adding that he should have walked away.
An organization led by the activist James O'Keefe, Project Veritas, released the video, which showed an undercover operative pitching a voter-fraud plan that called for casting ballots in the names of 100 voters who were registered but rarely voted. In the video, Patrick Moran expresses doubts but eventually tells the undercover volunteer to "look into it."
Patrick Moran said late yesterday that he thought the man was joking "and only for that reason did I humor him." Nevertheless, he was caught on camera falling into O'Keefe's trap on voter fraud, and had no choice but to resign from his father's campaign.
But while O'Keefe is no doubt delighted to have actually succeeded for a change, it'd be a stretch to suggest there's any balance in his win-loss ratio.
Alex Seitz-Wald offered this round-up of the activist's greatest hits.
He brought down execs at NPR, but that was only because the radio network badly botched the situation. Even Glenn Beck’s website debunked that tape.
And those were the successes. Beyond that, there’s a whole series of laughably bad “bombshells” that completely fizzled. There was the hit on the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein for drinking beer with sources (gasp!); the Occupy Wall Street sting that wasn’t; and a whole series of flops on voter fraud. And then there were O’Keefe’s calamities. These include the time he tried to seduce a CNN reporter onto a boat filled with sex toys; the time he was arrested and charged with a felony (but convicted of only a misdemeanor!); and the time he may have actually committed fraud himself in New Hampshire. There is also this horribly embarrassing music video he made to promote himself.
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Its a good thing that voter fraud doesn't exist...
just saying..
Not to the extent that Republicans think give them the right to suppress legitimate voters, Stormyguy.
Just saying.
Well, Stormyguy53, see, although young Moran was stupid and should have suspected his questioner was one of O'Keefe's goons (and maybe he did suspect hence the playing along which backfired because these O'Keefe types and the people who buy into their nonsense are too stupid to get when someone is playing with them)....this is not voter fraud, this is not even a conspiracy to commit voter fraud. Saying "I'll look into it" is a brush off...we all do that when we don't want to spend more time with an idiot.
Actually, I don't remember anyone but right-wing trolls trying to be funny saying there wasn't such a thing as voter fruad. What I remember people saying was that there wasn't such a thing as In-Person Voter Fraud. You know, the kind that is supposed to be stopped by photo id's. The kind O'Keefe is talking about wouldn't be stopped by a photo id at any point.
Stormguy53 . . . Voter fraud very much exists. And we know this because Mitt and Ann Romney committed it in 2010, citing their son's unfinished basement as their "residence" address, thus allowing them to vote in Massachusetts.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/did-mitt-romney-commit-voter-fraud
In fact, I believe O'Keefe conspired to commit voter fraud himself, thus proving its existence:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/11/1082433/-James-O-Keefe-proves-again-voter-fraud-is-a-Republican-nbsp-stunt
Why O'Keefe isn't in jail for violating his federal probation in the Mary Landrieu wiretapping case is beyond me.
That's funny, Moran could always use the defense, that it was all originally the Republicans' idea. The devils made him do it.
Embarrassing. Ugh.
Actually, here in the Twenty-First Century, broken clocks are blank.
I gotta get one of those .
Do I know anybody like this person ? Have I been constantly nagged by a person within my orbit about a non existent issue that seems to , publicly , completely absorb them ?
For myself one , -ish- , thing fearfully raises its confused head , the hate brigrade against Bill Belichick , oh and the publisized personal demons hounding S Palin amazin' vision , and J O'Keefe and the never ending story . Difficult to count up the weakness of weak minds supported by malicious minds , perhaps a newish bleeding heart contagion ?
The real demons are the ones enabling delusional minds to continue their obsessions , in a non therapeutic manner .
Que weird music
Mordack sees personal destruction close to home for the politics of personal destruction .
I hope you don't mind if I make this "weak minds supported by malicious minds" as my quote of the day, FRP. It is hard to quantify what is happening in American politics but this nails it. Whilst it happens on both side the far right manage, in a not very subtle way, to get people to vote against their best interests by tapping into deep fears they seem unaware of and the snowball starts rolling downhill. I feel very uneasy about the elections but when wise people write something I feel but can't seem to get my head around I realize that within all the discourse there are intelligent people who have a handle on things.
See! See! "Both sides do it!"
And that the GOP, hip deep in voter suppression, can shrug it off as a false equivalency is a real problem as it neatly spins the media coverage; both do it.
Of course, coverage will fail to point out that the scale is massively different and even lopsided.
or that in this case it was a "Sting" operation conducted by a professional muckraker and would be yellow journalist. A Drudge wanna-be
So there are Democrats out there who don't realize they exist under a Republican microscope and continue to behave less than admirably.
And there are Repubicans out there who believe they have a immunity card every time they catch a Democrat committing some sin.
Pathetic.
Was the video edited? It looks bad, but O'Keefe has a history of selectively editing videos to promote his agenda. I'd like to see an unedited version.
Time to use 'the holy hand grenade'
And the number shall be three...thanks for the laugh!
Answer me these questions three, 'ere the polling place you'll see...What is your name? (Sir Lancelot!) What is your quest? (I seek the vote!) What is your favorite party? (Democrat! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHH)
It would be nice to think that honest politicians (and their sons or aides) would just tell kooky voters to go to hell. But let's be honest. If a potential voter (even a volunteer) shows support, the candidate is going to avoid starting a confrontation. 'W e'll look into it" is a pretty standard response. "You look into it" is a pretty politic way of saying "I have no time for this nonsense."
Good thing this happened in VA, we already know their election board overlooks voting fraud.
Only when the left produces an alternative to the George McFly of political operatives will the media express outrage at these kinds of shenanigans.
I say we do it, sit back and watch Blitzer et all finally say 'enough is enough'.
HMMMMM Why is it the ones complaining about voter fraud are committing most of it? This is surly a "Godly" party of Truth, Trust, and Family values. NOW! This is the example to set for all children of this nation!
This will be all that is talked about in conservative media, and will probably be reason to legitimize voter intimidation or recounts and yet Tagg Romney's association with voter machines in Ohio has been silenced.
So the first thing is I hope no one is so blind as to actually believe that this is the only democrat anyone is able to find who is doing something wrong. Is my party as good at sticking their foot into it as the other guys? No, but think that every democrat is completely above board is naive... And to out right state it on a news blog is just bias and helps prove the case that the right has against us.
As for the voter fraud you have to ask yourself why would anyone on the right want to open that can of worms? I mean this guys is a crack pot and if Glenn Beck calls you out on something you know you are completely off the reservation...
This reminds me of the Ed Harris - Alan Arkin scene in "Glengarry Glen Ross" when they are just talking about stealing the good leads.
We've seen a number of expose videos the past year and in a time when voter fraud/ supression makes headlines, Moran should have known better. Why would he even joke about it with people he doesn't know?
O'Keefe probably would like to get his traveling circus on faux news and this might get him there.
I guess joking about voter fraud is just as bad as committing it these days. I guess someone needs to tell comedy Central to stop. People are taking this waaaaay too seriously. Now on to real news that doesn't involve the Republican Joker.
O'Keefe has so far only shown that, in the enormous apparatus of a political campaign, he can find some people who will say something stupid if he goads them into it. Wow, tell me something I don't already know. On the other hand, real reporters are uncovering things like the large-scale, real, live, actual fraud committed by the likes of Strategic Allied Consulting.
why is James O'Keefe not in jail, I thought conspiracy to commit voter fraud was a federal felony and using as cohort to talk some one into committing a felony is a felony.
Sounds like the kind of thing I tell the telemarketers in order to get rid of them. "Ok, I'll look into it and get back to you."
Like in a real sting operation, you have to show serious intent to commit fraud. Just saying you're going to do it isn't enough. If it was, many people would be in jail for attempted murder just because they said they wanted to "kill" someone else.
The guy resigned more out of embarrassment for being punk'd by this loser than doing something wrong.
Exactly. O'Keefe didn't "catch a Democrat doing something wrong." Moran told O'Keefe's person to "look into it," since he was the one pushing for it. Would we consider it a successful police sting if the cops suggested a crime to a target, and the target said "sure, you go do that" but wasn't involved himself?
(And that's leaving aside that, as usual, we haven't seen the unedited tape, and O'Keefe's tapes are always misleadingly edited to make the subject look as bad as possible.)
Moran resigned because they don't need the distraction this close to Election Day, not because he actually did anything more wrong than embarrassing himself.
O'Keefe and Romney employ the same sleazy tactics to prove their false accusations Political scams are so yesterday!!
The right response would have been: "Don't even go there."
The weak response (which was given) is: "Look into it."
The real "wrong" answer would have been: "Sounds good to me."
It wouldn't have mattered if Patrick Moran had responded differently or not, because o'keefe would have edited it to show HIS/breitbart agenda. Did anyone ever do a DNA test on breitbart's "body" when he "died?" I think that he is on the same beach as "kenny boy " lay (ENRON anyone) sipping drinks with little parasols in them. Why hasn't the paul sproul story been all over the mainstream/lamestream media. Acorn (and almost Shirley Sherrod) were brought down in days. Will this be another election that the repubs will steal?
It's time to flood the WWW with O'Keefe's picture, along with descriptions of all the vile @!$%# this punk has done.