I would like to take this opportunity to say, "Happy St. Patty's Day". I don't care how much the holiday reflects stupid stereotypes and alcohol, to me it is a day of celebration. Of anything. It is inclusive -- we all know anybody can be Irish on St. Patrick's Day. There may be St. Patrick's Day sales, but only an idiot would waste the day shopping. Any other day of the year I can complain about food coloring and other additives poisoning us for no reason other than to make food look pretty, but on St. Patty's day, I'll take my beer green.
But there is a dark shadow I need to talk about on this March 17, and that is the creepy hero of the right-wing, James O'Keefe. We liberals don't like to believe that people are evil, but I would pretty much bet that this twerp would take candy from a baby. And because we don't want to believe in this jerk, he has been getting away, not just with ruining lives, but committing criminal acts.
And then he stands up and takes a bow.
Why not? It appears he is president of a non-profit organization called Project Veritas -- I kid you not. There do not exist italics that do justice to the irony of that last sentence.
We all -- even Glenn Beck -- know that O'Keefe sets up phony situations, and then falsifies the phony interview by tampering with the tape. The kind of set-up he has become famous for may not be illegal, but then falsifying the tape and presenting it as fact is certainly libel.
And yet he was able to provide the impetus for dismantling ACORN, an organization that on a shoestring has done great work organizing the poor and disenfranchised, which, of course, is exactly the point of O'Keefe's harassment.
Even after he was charged with attempting to tamper with Senator Mary Landrieu's telephones, the media still reports his episodes as truth, not fiction.
When NPR executive Ron Schiller was framed by O'Keefe, I would think by this time the media -- especially NPR -- would have taken a closer look. But once again, it cost good people their jobs, and, given the typical lemming-like behavior of many Democrats, will no doubt result in the eventual defunding of NPR.
And James O'Keefe? He calls his reporting "powerful" and "honest". But do we laugh at this pathetic and amateurish character?
Surprisingly, Scott Baker of Glenn Beck's blog, The Blaze, decided that O'Keefe does not in fact practice journalism. That he lacks the ethical values to which journalists should aspire.
I would have liked to write this column on April Fools' Day, but it couldn't wait. However, in the spirit of April 1, I end by observing that, indeed, Beck's blog is today advertising St. Patrick's Day sales.
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