Comparing O'Keefe's shenanigans to Watergate is silly.

[cali]

I'm delighted that the little shit got busted. I hope he's found guilty. I hope Andrew Breitbart is tarnished or more, but at this point there's no reason to believe that high up gov't officials were involved in any way.

The Watergate break in was conducted under authorization from the White House. The O'keefe thing is not comparable.

[Rex]

1. Shenanigans huh?

We will see if a judge agrees.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DearAbby]

2. Dont really know if Nixon was involved in the actual

break in, or planning of the break in, we do know once he found out he tried to cover it up, because of the who were involved.

We don't know all the facts. Who hired these fucks, or what they were after. Huffington Post mentions a person sitting in a car with a listening device. They had planed to hear conversations of a Sitting Senator, over U.S Telephone system. Very serious charges. I don't believe for one minute...OKeefe acted alone, even thought this up alone.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

30. Hmmm... according to Jeb Magruder, Nixon okayed it. Magruder was one of Nixon's aides.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3101661.stm

Nixon 'ordered Watergate break-in'

Jeb Magruder at the Senate Watergate hearings
Magruder went to jail for his role in Watergate
A former aide to Richard Nixon has said the president personally ordered the Watergate break-in which would ultimately lead to his downfall.

Jeb Magruder said he heard a telephone call in which President Nixon approved the plan to break into Democratic headquarters at the Watergate hotel and bug the offices.

Previously, it had been thought that Nixon had only participated in the cover-up of the scandal.

Threatened by impeachment over the affair, Nixon resigned. Twenty-five people, including Mr Magruder who was Nixon's deputy re-election campaign director, were jailed for their involvement.

[DearAbby]

51. Stand corrected

:salute:

[sandnsea]

3. This was bugging a Senator, Watergate was the RNC

From a straight-up crime point of view, this is worse. Politically though, I agree, it's not Watergate. Just some idiots.

[cali]

5. you mean Watergate was the DNC

Agreed the DNC was not federal property.

[sandnsea]

12. Yes I did, need sleep

I just think bugging a Senator, regardless of where she is, makes this a very big deal. That's how nuts these people are, they're thinking it's patriot to bug Senators.

[ThatPoetGuy]

4. There's no reason to use that as a basis for comparison.

You're saying the comparison fails because Watergate was instigated by the White House. You could just as easily say that the comparison fails because Watergate took place in an election year. You're picking and choosing which details you consider relevant, and there's no logical basis for your choices.

[cali]

6. No, I'm saying Watergate involved people high up in the government.

that's not a mere detail.

[Skittles]

7. do you know how long it took to discover that????

[blondeatlast]

29. Yup. nt

[DFLforever]

8. We didn't know that right away, did we?

Certainly not before the '72 election.

We don't yet know if there are others behind this operation. Though I agree with you. It isn't going to be the White House.

[ThatPoetGuy]

10. The Watergate break-in...

was instigated by right-wing ideologues who tried to subvert democracy because they believed their ambitions were more important than democracy. They disregarded the law because they saw themselves as superior to it. So they broke in to opposition areas, illegally, and planted wiretaps, in order to violate their opposition's privacy, in the hopes of gathering dirt that could be used as dirty tricks, in order to make the will of the people subservient to their will.

Yes, you are picking and choosing details. No, there is neither logic nor insight nor truth driving your selection.

[ashling]

17. That was not immediately clear w/ watergate

At this point in the watergate story, it was just a stupid bungled break in w/ no tie ins to those high up in government.

[KharmaTrain]

9. This Is Worse Than Watergate

The first reaction is what we're hearing...and it could play out to be worse...especially if they were fixing or removing a bug (the Watergate burgerlers were caught after the bugs were planted) and had recorded the Senator. This is wiretapping a Federal official whereas Watergate was a party headquarters. Who know what secrets or negotiations they could have overheard or taped. Either way, the stupid shit is in major trouble.

Now it's too early to see whose involved, but I get a feeling there will be more names forthcoming. O'Keefe couldn't have done this by himself...especially getting knowledge about the phone system or how to sabotage it. Also there are the receivers to listen in...you don't get those off the shelf at radio shack.

There's been something smelly about O'Keefe's "journalism" as how many 25 year olds have the money to go running around the country...especially the ACORN scam. Between plane tickets, hotels, rental cars and other "materials", this would mean regular access to thousands of dollars. Maybe he's inherited money, but I doubt it. It had to come from somewhere. Now there's cause and conspiracy...RICO charges that could really open the dark side of the GOOP dirty tricks operations to the world. I've been hoping for this for years.

Also, there are a lot of "incidental" connections here...too many. One of those whose name immediately showed was the infamous Morton Blackwell...the ultimate GOOP dirty trickster. If this conspiracy leads back to him, we may have to thank Mr. O'Keefe for being both stupid and serving up this long entrenched criminal enterprise.

No it's not like Watergate as much as it's like the Mafia.

[ThatPoetGuy]

11. Good point!

Senator Landrieu serves on the Senate Subcommittee on Homeland Security. If these conservaterrorists had managed to tap her phone, they could have had access to top secret information about Al Qaeda's activities. These scumbags put our national security at risk.

[sandnsea]

13. Oooh, Dirty Tricks Operations

I like that better than a connection to the government. I hope this leads to some big money and big names being uncovered.

[KharmaTrain]

15. Why I'm Saying...Follow The Money...

These ratfuckers had become right wing superstars...and something didn't smell right with the ACORN sting. Stupid shitstains thought they were "journalists" and this was supposed to protect them from the means they gathered the video and/or edited it. There are too many moving parts that pointed to others being involved...and this scam appears to have been even more adventurous than the past.

This could be a classic racketeering case...you have cause, you have intent...and, if I've read correctly, an admission. This opens the door and I'll bet the FBI and Secret Service are busy going through phone records, billing records and any other evidence that is germaine not only to this crime but to what appears to be an ongoing enterprise.

The fun will be when one or several of these "intrepid journalists" (I like the word conservoterrorist, but ratfuckers work as well) start singing for their supper...plea bargaining and giving up names that are sure to give up more names. Call them too smart by half...but there's too many connections to too many right wing groups to ignore. Even if the government doesn't dig them all up, there are plenty of REAL journalists out there who will be hot on this trail.

Stay tuned...

:hi:

[SpiralHawk]

20. Occultism is the Republicon Modus Operandi

And this is just one more ugly example of Republicon occultism. Who knows what vile 'family values' shit goes on down down down in their basements?

[Richard D]

27. You can get pretty good bugging equipment

on the internet for a grand, more or less. Pretty weird stuff out there. http://www.advanced-intelligence.com/audio.html

[yellowcanine]

37. But apparently not good enough. It did not take the FBI long to find the would be spook in the car.

These guys were in way over their head.

[H2O Man]

50. True.

These guys appear to have used some relatively inferior equipment. I think that this was because they wanted to do a "daylight" operation, complete with filming it. It is also possible that they recognized that they were not able to do a "black bag," and viewed the risks associated as too great.

Either way, it was an attempt at an organized, very illegal activity. And they assumed that they were way smarter than the targets.

[uponit7771]

34. +1!!!

[yellowcanine]

36. If higher up Republicans were involved, which seems likely, I agree.

[KharmaTrain]

46. Let's See How Quickly This Unravels...

I'm chuckling in hearing David Shuster is on his way to NOLA to follow up on this story...it's got legs and could run for a bit. We're already seeing scrambling in the right wing bubbleworld as they try to figure out how to spin this...or do damage control. They know this isn't a good thing and the ramifications could be deep.

Breibart will be the one to watch here as he's already squirming. Depending on how this case is handled, it could expand out quickly...especially if there's a grand jury called and supboenas are issued. I would also suspect from seeing how Federal DAs work, they see a chance to do some "squeezing up"...find out who paid for this adventure. Flannigan is the most likely to connect some dots...partially to save his bacon and also to protect his father. That puts the Pelican Institute in the spot light and from there this bright shiny toy could really get fun.

Stay tuned...

[eShirl]

14. They're not 12 years old. There are disabled veterans younger than they are ferkisakes.

"shenanigans" (is that an anti-Irish slur??!1 :sarcasm: )

[JHB]

16. It does show how normalized Nixon's "ratfucking" tactics have become...

...among Republican/conservative activists.

Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks. It was first brought to public attention during the Watergate scandal investigation that during the 1972 presidential campaign the Nixon campaign committee maintained a "dirty tricks" unit focused on discrediting Nixon's strongest challengers.

According to Woodward and Bernstein, Nixon aide Dwight Chapin hired fellow USC alumnus Donald Segretti to run a campaign of dirty tricks (which Segretti dubbed "ratfucking") against the Democrats in 1972. The purpose of the operation was to create as much bitterness and disunity within the Democrat primary as possible. One notable example of Segretti's wrong-doing was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old.

Among the tactics were: canceling meeting-hall reservations just prior to rallies, putting out false press releases or "leaked documents" in the name of political opponents, spying on rival campaigns, putting plants into rival campaigns, purloining speeches and information, vote contracting, jamming phone lines, ordering vast quantities of food for delivery in the name of rival campaigns, hiring "rioters" and "activists, conducting deceptive or offensive get out the vote phone canvasses, push polls, and similar activities.

http://www.correntewire.com/ratfucking_a_gop_tradition

O'Keefe is a former beneficiary and employee of the Leadership Institute, which coud just as well be called "Ratfucker University". Another former employee was also recently in the news in the Citizens United case travesty:

From Hullabaloo:
Update: By digby. I want to also point out that aside from the obvious comparisons to Watergate, there is another more recent comparison that is particularly relevant today.

First, it should be noted again that the ACORN tapes were doctored. Why I'm seeing Tweety play them on a loop anyway, as he's reporting this story, I'll leave up to your imagination.

But what I find most intriguing is that a week after conservative hit man David Bossie is reanimated as a conservative hero, that the newest conservative hit man hero is caught wiretapping. Bossie, after all, came to prominence over this:

"Bossie was fired from his job as an investigator working for Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee in 1998"<9> while "investigating Clinton-Gore campaign finances."<10> According to a May 7, 1998, front-page article published by the Washington Post,<11> Bossie was fired "after overseeing the release of recordings of Hillary Rodham Clinton's phone conversations with Whitewater figure Webster L. Hubbell. The tapes were edited to create the impression that Clinton was involved in billing irregularities at the Arkansas law firm where she and Hubbell worked."<12>

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/acorn-nut-busted-by-tristero-rightwing.html

Other LI alumni are "Jeff Gannon", Grover Norquist, and Karl Rove.

Politics may be hardball, but the Republicans have institutionalized Shitball.

[Bucky]

18. Just cause they're out of the gov't doesn't mean they're not powerful people.

Half the problem with the privatization of national security is that we'll have quasi-military organizations snooping in our lives that even the elected government can't control. This is smaller than Watergate, but it points to a problem that could eventually become much much bigger.

[H2O Man]

19. "Watergate"

is the name for a very large series of activities that the Nixon forces were engaged in over a period of years. It included efforts by a variety of characters, that involved numerous activities besides the break-in at the Watergate building. Included among them were the infamous activities of college-aged folks known as the "ratfuckers."

The sad fact is that republican "activists" continue to engage in such tactics, which often include breaking the law. Just one example: in the 2004 election, the democratic HQ near Philly was burglarized. No money was taken, just computer hard-drives. Although the police never "solved" the crime, there was little question about what the motive was, nor what type of people were involved. I know this, as I spoke directly to the state's head of the Kerry campaign about it.

The people who worked at the HQ told me that it reminded them of Watergate. Certainly, the Bush White House had not ordered the break-in. Yet, their description was accurate.

[maddezmom]

23. agree with you on the ratfuckers comment

the more I learn about these 4 that were arrested and the people they were involved with it seems like a new group of ratfuckers.

[H2O Man]

48. I think that

their type began to re-surface between 1993 and 2000. There were instances of their activities during the Bush-Cheney years, but they were "low-level" (in another sense than that description always fits). It's been since 2006, and more so after 2008, that they have begun to step-up their efforts. They tend to find the Nixon-era characters to be noble, and are often inspired by people of that generation (their parents, perhaps a teacher, or a media figure), who generate myths about how they tried to save the country in the Nixon era. They are likely to become a more common feature in the upcoming years.

[TexasObserver]

45. They're branches of the same old GOP tree.

These dirty tricksters are a feature of the GOP of longstanding. They're not isolated. They're organized. They have been doing this at least four decades and they ARE criminals. They're Rove, and Libby, and hundreds of others whose names have been forgotten, like Donald Segretti.

All attempts to minimize this serious crime should be dismissed as misplaced and/or tragically naive.

[H2O Man]

47. At this point,

while relatively little is known for sure, I suspect that we are looking at an operation that is more sophisticated than that rather pathetic young lady who carved the letter on her face during the 2008 campaign. And I agree 100% that there is an on-going, organized right-wing faction that engages in everything from misinformation, disinformation, and illegal activities that are a combination of "dirty tricks" and attempts to gather "intelligence" information.

I can say without any possibility of being wrong -- and I know that you are also aware of this -- that some of those who are members of the "front" groups that not only encourage, but also invest (financially, and in "training") the mis/disinformation campaigns and "dirty tricks" seek promotion within the ranks by running decentralized operations. Some go unnoticed; some are apparent, though not adequately confronted; and a very few fail at the level of this one.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

21. Using words like "shenanigans" and "silly" is like calling torture "fraternity pranks"

You're downplaying some serious stuff and at this point no one has ANY idea where or who these activities could lead to.

Wiretapping a Senator to me immediately makes me think "blackmail" "extortion", etc. - I don't put it in the "shenanigan" category. The Right will attempt to downplay it - Ohh, he's just a young guy that likes to play dress-up and take down Dems and liberal organizations with his "pranks".

[Ganja Ninja]

22. Not comparable?

One has ties to the CIA.
One has ties to a federal prosecutor.
One has ties to a David Vitter.
One, O'Keeffe is the darling of the right wing media.

Don't be surprised if there's more people involved than just these morons. Finding out where they got there equipment from (and who may have paid for it) is going to be very interesting. Could have been bought from a private supplier. Could be the CIA. Could be federal, state or local law enforcement. Could be any of the private security firms that are linked to the right. It could have come from a right wing media outlet like FOX.

Just because the crime was committed by a group of laughable ass clowns doesn't mean we should just dismiss it as an over the top prank.

[Liberal In Texas]

24. Maybe. Maybe not. At the time, when the Watergate break-in happened

it didn't cause all that much notice in the MSM. It was reported, but nobody knew at the time the real impact until the FBI and especially two reporters from The Washington Post sunk their teeth into it and the rest, as they say, is history.

This current bungled job needs to be fully investigated.

[stray cat]

25. Not just silly season but stupid season - elevating a petty criminal to bringing down a presidency

[blogslut]

26. Perhaps

But if prosecuting him could lead to exposing back-door players like Morton Blackwell and Richard Viguerie as well as disentangle the entanglements between them and astro-turfing groups like Freedom Works, Citizens United then that will be a very good thing.

[blondeatlast]

28. Watergate was just a break-in, too. Until... nt

[Jefferson23]

32. Time will tell cali, hopefully sooner than later.

[yellowcanine]

33. You forget that the Watergate break in was initially described as a "third rate burglery".

No this was not authorized by the White House so in that way it doesn't compare to Watergate. But was it authorized by an elected or appointed high up Republican? I would not be so sure about that. The Republicans would love to knock off another Democratic Senator and Landrieu is a good a target as any. After all the stakes are even higher than in 1972. Nixon had nothing to gain from bugging the Democrats, he was going to win reelection easily. Today the Republicans have a lot to gain by knocking off as many Democratic Senators as possible.

[DFW]

35. First off, they don't have the White House this time. BUT......

We don't know if this was a one-off (I doubt it) or part of a systematic operation, only this small part of
which has so far been discovered. Obviously Fox and the RNC will say they had no knowledge of the operation
and they hadn't the slightest idea, and that they condemn this sort of thing etc etc etc. They did that with
Watergate as well, and the Nixon dirty tricks team (including Fox Noise chief Roger Ailes) was already active
in the 1968 election. Personally, I very much doubt that this was a one-off stunt, and I also doubt that it was
undertaken with no knowledge higher up. Of course, they'll deny it. "If any of your team is caught or killed,
the Secretary will deny any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim!" Right out of the TV script. Nixon's
goons denied it, too, until they were proved to be lying. I'll bet there is a lot of wiping clean of hard drives
and erasing of cell phone text messages going on right about now.

[yellowcanine]

40. I Forgot about Ailes and the Nixon connection. Hmm. You may have something there.

Of course if higher ups were involved, no amount of data wiping is going to save them. All the FBI has to do is get the perps to plea bargain and the whole thing is going to unravel very quickly. The Watergate burglars were ex CIA pros and still one of them (McCord) cracked. These guys are wannabe spooks. It will take about 5 minutes to get them spilling their guts to the Feds.

[izzybeans]

38. There was no reason to believe that about Watergate at first either.

[Blue_Tires]

39. um... you may want to wait a minute and at least find out

how wide their connections are... because no one even dares to try this stunt without knowing there is a well-financed, influential web of protection in case something goes wrong...

[lame54]

42. true - let's wait till they start rolling on each other first

[lame54]

41. Yes, but had he succeeded and collected any usable info...

do you not think it would have ended up in official repug hands and used against the democratic party?

[TexasObserver]

43. This thread is silly. And pointless.

One can compare two things that are dissimilar in some respects. That's usually one purpose of comparison - to determine similarities.

You don't know how important this case will be. Time will tell.

[ClassWarrior]

44. You always seem to be calling other DUers morons, and now here you are soft-pedaling...

...a RW crime. Hmmm.

NGU.

[kentuck]

49. But we shouldn't minimize it either...

It is not a trivial matter. It is a criminal matter.