The Lies of James O'Keefe (MediaMatters)

[struggle4progress]

CNN reports that conservative activist James O'Keefe attempted to "punk" a CNN reporter by luring her onto a boat "filled with sexually explicit props" and recording the encounter, a charge O'Keefe denies. If true, the alleged deception would be the latest in a string of lies and falsehoods O'Keefe has used to push his ideological agenda ...

O'Keefe falsely claimed that ACORN tapes were a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" that implicated many ACORN employees. Discussing the ACORN videos created by O'Keefe and fellow conservative activist Hannah Giles, O'Keefe falsely claimed that the video campaign was a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" implicating many ACORN employees. But in at least six of the eight heavily edited videos produced by O'Keefe and Giles and distributed by Andrew Breitbart, either the activists did not clearly tell the ACORN employees that they were planning to engage in child prostitution; or the ACORN employees refused to help them or apparently deliberately misled them; or ACORN employees contacted the police following their visit ...

O'Keefe's BigGovernment video omits relevant clip in claiming that "Census supervisors" were "systemically encouraging employees to falsify information on their time sheets." In a ten-minute video posted on BigGovernment.com, O'Keefe stated that he had been hired as a Census worker and attended two days of training. He said, "What I found were Census supervisors systematically encouraging employees to falsify information on their time sheets." The video includes clips of census leaders, who according to O'Keefe, "didn't seem to have a problem with the discrepancy" of the hours recorded on his time sheet versus the hours he claimed to have worked. O'Keefe omitted a clip that was later aired by ABC, which shows a census leader emphasizing the importance of accurately reporting on miles driven by census enumerators.

Friend of O'Keefe reportedly objected to past transcript distortion. A September 18, 2009, New York Times article reported that Liz Farkas, a college friend of O'Keefe's while at Rutgers University, said she "grew disillusioned" after O'Keefe asked Farkas to help deceptively "edit the script" of a video involving a nurse at the University of California at Los Angeles.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201009290035

[aquart]

1. And yet, ACORN was successfully destroyed.

Because Democrats wouldn't defend it in the face of the lies.