A Scam Too Far

Propagandist/dirty trickster James O’Keefe got caught trying to “ACORN” the news network CNN. And CNN ain’t happy. See “Fake pimp from ACORN videos tries to ‘punk’ CNN correspondent.” The correspondent, Abbie Boudreau, has been filming an investigative piece about a group of conservative activists, including O’Keefe.

It appears O’Keefe decided to discredit Boudreau by luring her onto a boat filled with “sexually explicit props” and hidden cameras, and seducing her on camera. (Dude, ain’t enough roofies on the planet … ) Boudreau was warned of the scam just before she got on the boat.

CNN’s report includes the detail that ACORN was scammed, and that the videos that caused their downfall had been heavily edited by O’Keefe.

Boudreau’s account of what happened is hilarious, in a creepy sort of way. I take it O’Keefe’s ideas about seduction were gleaned from his dad’s collection of 1970s Penthouse magazines.

29 thoughts on “A Scam Too Far

  1. With hard work and a little more class and polish, O’Keefe may be able to work himself up into the world of snuff filmmakers.

    O’Keefe was going to “seduce her?” This punk couldn’t get laid with a fist full of pardons in a womens prison. Men’s either, now that I think about it.
    This O’Keefe’s not just the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel. He’s what’s underneath the bottom of the barrel. What a lowlife!

  2. And yet he will somehow continue to be “employed” and earn a living being a professional sewer.

    (Apologies to any sewers who object to my characterization of O’Keefe.)

  3. I see O’keefe has a firm handle on understanding female sexuality. Personally, I’d skip the p0rn magazines and do the dishes or scrub the floors, because I believe it to be true that sex begins in the kitchen.

  4. Why isn’t this O’Keefe clown in prison with his roommate, Bubba? Clearly whatever “punishment” he given previously has had no effect.

  5. [Retrieved from spam filter, not surprisingly — maha]

    “I see O’keefe has a firm handle on understanding female sexuality”

    No shit what’s with this guy, porno mags, sex toys, what does he think this attractive woman will see the sex toys and immediately take off her clothes while he gets it on tape? Typical sexually repressed dork conservative!

  6. I miss those old Penthouse mags. Every Forum letter was true I tell ya, they were all true. Just nothing like that ever happend to me 🙁

  7. Penthouse was innocent fun, a romp for guys of a certain age. It went well with the Farrah Fawcett poster I remember seeing on some dorm room walls.

    OTOH, from a purely psychological standpoint (setting the political aside), O’Keefe weirds me out. He reminds me a lot of a conservative weenie I worked for – preoccupied with sex in a mean, frat-boy kind of way; a small, angry boy in a grown man’s body.

    His ACORN stunt involved amped up sexuality, and a similar theme repeats with this stunt with the CNN reporter. Each of these is really a cry for help, and if he doesn’t get it now, he’ll keep on repeating it, in one form or another, until his connections can no longer keep him out of jail.

  8. As I read the article, there’s a person named Santa, who worked for O’keefe and warned off the CNN correspondent at the last minute. The reasons are not clear, but she (Santa) had to know that after she prevented the interview from happening, her job with O’keefe was toast.

    As I read it, and I’m guessing, Santa is not a liberal if she worked for O’keefe. By preventing O’keefe from damaging CNN, she’s probably blacklisted with all wingnut groups. So on the face of it, a wingnut sacrificed herself in an act of integrity. That’s headline news.

  9. My feeling is that CNN is trying to punk the general public by publishing this little story about O’keefe. I think that CNN and O’keefe are feeding off each other for mutual benefit, in collusion . O’keefe gets the exposure and name recognition which all counts for good whether negative or positive, and CNN get to boost their upcoming story.

    There are to many inconsistencies with reality that make me suspect of the whole scenario, how it went down, and what it was supposed to be. I don’t doubt that O’keefe is a flaky lowlife individual, but I don’t think to the degree he has been portrayed, and the reporters knowledge of the attempted punking is a little too convenient for credibility. I wouldn’t put it past either CNN or O’keefe to play the public…after all, they both view the public as a bunch of rubes.

    Just my thoughts on it. Doug’s comment above triggered my skepticism, because Wingnuts don’t sacrifice themselves for integrity.. Never look a gift horse in the mouth!

    • My feeling is that CNN is trying to punk the general public by publishing this little story about O’keefe. I think that CNN and O’keefe are feeding off each other for mutual benefit, in collusion . O’keefe gets the exposure and name recognition which all counts for good whether negative or positive, and CNN get to boost their upcoming story.

      Maybe, but O’Keefe is being slammed fairly robustly even on Newsbusters and RedState, where he previously was a candidate for sainthood.

      I don’t doubt that O’keefe is a flaky lowlife individual, but I don’t think to the degree he has been portrayed, and the reporters knowledge of the attempted punking is a little too convenient for credibility. I wouldn’t put it past either CNN or O’keefe to play the public…after all, they both view the public as a bunch of rubes.

      Why not to the degree he has been portrayed? Also, IMO the woman who tipped off the reporter possibly realized O’Keefe was about to make an ass of himself, and/or was grossed out by the whole thing. I don’t think it’s utterly impossible that she might have made an independent decision to pull the plug on the stunt.

  10. Yes, Moonbat I think your description of O’Keefe is spot on from both angles the hostility towards women and the cry for help, definitely a creep of the first order.

    I heard on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” that Karl Rove’s psyche was bent out of shape as a young lad in 1960, when he got into an altercation with a female classmate who had a “Kennedy” bumper sticker on her bicycle. She beat the hell out of him and he has hated liberals ever since. I am not sure of all the details, but, as I recall, it actually happened. O’Keefe has probably suffered some similar embarassment.

    On the serious side, O’Keefe’s crimes indicate the highest level of criminal intent. He purposefully seeks to harm others with deliberately misleading, libelous assaults. He is a repeat offender without a scintilla of contrition.

    Book him, Danno!

    But, you have to ask, if you were one of O’Keefe’s partners in crime and you read the details of a “plan” that hinged on a hopeless dweeb seducing a young successful woman, how would you rate the chance of success. I’d say roughly the same as if I dressed up as a horse and tried to win the Preakness.

  11. Sorry, should be a question mark after “success”‘. My keyboard has been very dodgey lately, a lot of keys stick, increasing my typos. But, this is clearly a case of an unclear thought process.

    I think the consensus here is right that O’Keefe’s seduction methods seem a bit shopworn and Swami is more on the mark.

    Back in my bachelor days we used to dress like Norm Abrams and cruise the Home Depot. Mature women weren’t so concerned with what a man looked like. But, if you could help her remodel het kitchen that was a defininte plus.

    As the poet Burns nearly said, “The best plans to get laid of mice and men gang aft agley…”

  12. Why not to the degree he has been portrayed?

    Because O’keefe’s checklist/ dream sheet for items necessary or desired to execute his seduction is way over the top. I see it as either he drafted that checklist with the intention of a public disclosure of it, or the reporter fabricated the contents to embellish her story. Something just isn’t right.. like the fuzzy cuffs. Not all women are into the fuzzy cuff kink and there is no indication that the reporter would be responsive to fuzzy cuffs in the first place.. It’s more like intentional comedy looking for an audience.
    Why a hidden camera and then a tripod placed next to the bed? It doesn’t jive I don’t know who’s playing who, but I’m pretty sure somebody is being played to O’keefe’s benefit even though it appears derogatory toward him.

  13. “Hey, I wasn’t trying to seduce her – I was just kidding!” Jeez, those stupid liberals can’t take a joke.

    I suppose Paladino was joking when he threatened to “take out” a reporter. That Republican sense of humor can cover up a lot of embarrassment.

    How long, oh lord, must we suffer these fools?

  14. @Swami :

    O’Keefe’s bizarre scenario is perfectly rational if he wanted to make the situation seem ridiculous and over the top. That was certainly the case in the false ACORN scandal, so I’m not sure what you find so weird about it…

    It also doesn’t seem so odd to me that this Izza Santa woman might blow the whole stupid plot right open. It’s entirely plausible she was associated with O’Keefe’s goon squad for the money, rather than because she actually believed in anything they were doing. There’s nothing strange about your conscience creeping up on your when trying to put into action scummy, deceptive plots like this.

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  16. Swami, I think young Jimmy’s list of seduction props is credible if you look at a photo of him and see that he has never ever been with an actual lady person– paid or otherwise. (As kagerato mentions, it also fits with his laughable ACORN-stinging “pimp” costume; he has no idea, none at all, poor old-fashioned baby.)

    My take on Ms. Santa is that she accidentally ruined young Jimmy’s early Christmas with nervousness in front of Boudreau; the O’Keefers are a pod of extreme dorks, after all. Of course it’s impossible to know for sure wtf really was going on, but meta-scam or no, the end result is more people than ever are laughing at the little shite, which I’d say amounts to a win.

  17. I feel the most grief for Izzy Santa, who showed courage, compassion and integrity, and who must now face O’Keefe’s thuggish wrath. It is a grave misfortune to have an evil companion.

  18. Don’t trust the little scoundrels.. The names of the participants in this little scam sound like they came off of a sign-in sheet from high school when we had a substitute teacher…Ben Wetmore, Izzy Santa, Jonathan Burns. I know O’keefe is really juvenile, so it just makes me wonder if those names are for real.

  19. One aspect of this that I find illuminating and under-discussed is the follow-up plan:

    The document discusses the potential fallout from the operation.

    “If they pursue this as you are a creep, you should play it up with them initially only to reveal that the tape was made beforehand confirming this was a gag,” the document states. “If they [CNN] admit it was a gag, you should release the footage and focus on the fact they got punked, and make sure to emphasize Abbie’s name and overall status to help burden her career with this video, incident and her bad judgment in pursuing you so aggressively.”

    Finally, “if they go on the attack, you should point out the hypocrisy in CNN using the inherent sexuality of these women to sell viewers and for ratings, passing up more esteemed and respectable journalists who aren’t bubble-headed bleach blondes and keep the focus on CNN.”

    We’ll lure a woman under false pretenses onto a boat and into a room filled with dildos, and no matter what happens, we win!

    I’m not sure that disorder has a name, but it should.

  20. I liked their little contingency plan in the document..“If CNN gets advance warning and you find this out, you should simply cancel the operation, period,”

    If you got 4 knuckleheads involved in this little caper what are the chances CNN would get advanced warning? It could never exceed 25%. Unless advanced warning( an appeal to conscience, wink, wink) was part of the original plan. And what are the chances that O’keeke would know his plot has been discovered….In the real world it should be nil.

  21. I’m not sure if I’m the only one evil enough to visualize what his clown had planned – and it wasn’t seduction or rape. Keep in mind his skill with editing in the Acorn case. Remember how M Sherod’s speech was edited to create the OPPOSITE impression of what the speech said in context. OK, I wasn’t in the planning sessions but here’s what I think was planned, based on the Okeefe MO and the props.

    Get Bodreeau on the bat and tell her something that would appeal to her journalistic curiousity. “I don’t know why, but they set up our meeting at a GOP ‘entertainment center’ for VIPs. I hope you don’t mind the decor.” WOuld she do the smart thing and head for the door or would she see if O’keele would spill specific info about who paid for the brothel, who uses it, where do they get entertainers – in the hope che could confirm the story independently. All this is being filmed as she shows interest (not anger or revulsion) and he holds up sex toys and engages her in chit-chat. O’keefe knows he’s going to edit the hell out of this so he just wants HER and the toys in the picture with HIM. Probably as the meetign progresses, he will become more and more suggestive – until she’s had enough and leaves. There’s no WAY O’keeefe expects she will unbutton one button on her blouse.

    A week later he’s had his assistant shopping for a wig – the same length and hair shade – and exactly the outfit Boudreau was wearing. It’s no problem that they don’t look alike. The clip that will be edited in will show ‘her’ hands as they put the fuzzy cuffs on – and a shot from the back as ‘she’ has her face burried in O’keefe’s crotch.

    CNN might have fired her to spare themselves the embarasment – Bodreau would have been ruined as far as her career as a journalist is concerned. And O’keefe would have committed a rather original form of rape. That was the goal and O’keefe might well have brought it off. But this was no juvenile attempt at secution.

  22. I wonder if it could be considered harassmant if in the future every female reporter who spoke to him held up her little finger or referred to things he talks about as ‘premature. . .’

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