The guy who set up the camera and captured what Mitt Romney said to wealthy people when he didn’t think any peons were listening is going to be interviewed on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, 7 PM CST, Wednesday, March 13.
Personally, I think this guy should be given the Pulitzer.
He already did an interview earlier in the week at Huffpo. Apparently it was a bartender, more or less as everyone suspected.
I didn’t hear of that, although I just saw this bit in Salon. I had assumed the camera was hidden, rather than just sitting on a counter. And that he posted it mostly because Mitt took “the help” for granted.
Do you have a link to the HuffPo piece?
The Huffpo piece is linked in the Salon piece.
I think they’re kinda mis-reporting the Clinton angle. The headlines make it sound like the bartender was “inspired” by a meeting with Clinton in some ideological sense, but the actual summary makes it sound more like he was “inspired” by Clinton just in the sense that he’d ended up bringing the camera to work because he thought he might get a picture with Romney, just as he had with Clinton.
When Romney didn’t have time to meet the staff, he recorded the talk on a whim, since he had the camera in any case.
I guess it’ll be clearer when he gives the longer interview.
Romney never struck me as a natural politician, and nearly as uncomfortable in his own skin as Richard Nixon. And anyone is going to pale compared to Clinton, a man who even his enemies admit is a once in a generation political animal, who wouldn’t leave a dinner without personally thanking every member of the wait and kitchen staff.
Yeah, you can hear him putting ice in a glass or something during the video. It was pretty obvious who’d done it, and, without having read the interview, I’ll bet he either got fired or quit before they could fire him first.
The article observes, “… poetic justice in the idea of a hourly worker bringing down a presidential candidate for dismissing the importance of his vote.”
I also can’t help but notice the irony of the first LDS to run for president being brought down by a guy who makes his living serving alcohol.
Pulitzer, hell. I say give him the Nobel Prize. More than anyone else, this guy kept us safe from Romney. Can you imagine what Ryan’s budget would have looked like had they actually won the election?
Say what you want, that video CHANGED the election more than any Obama speech ever could.
I wonder what kind of precautions the Republicans are taking against a repeat of the incident. I hear that, instead of allowing the peons into the CPAC venue, they’re making Paul Ryan do the dishes. 
What’s amazing to me is that the guy who took the video didn’t try to “Joe the Plumber” it and capitalize on five minutes of fame during the election itself. If he deserves a prize for any reason, that’s it.
Yeah, he quit. He felt bad for his employers, who treated him well and whom he was afraid would face consequences. (He mentions that he too felt “in danger” in a sense, since, as another post here observed, it was pretty obvious from the angle who it had to have been.)
I disagree, Obama held a steady lead for the grand majority of the election coverage. The only thing that swung the numbers a noticeable amount was the first debate.
His name is Scott Prouty.
Here’s the video: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755822/ns/msnbc-the_ed_show/vp/51170895#51170895
He also once saved a woman from drowning in an alligator infested canal.
He doesn’t always drink beer, but when he does, he prefers Dos Equis.
Watching the show now. Its kind of an eye-opener, the guy’s well-spoken, thoughtful, and hell, he saved us from Romney. I want to meet him and shake his hand.
I hope now that his identity is out there, he’s not going to (let’s face it, he probably will) get death threats or shit like that.
Yeah, he kept quiet until the election was over, knowing that if he revealed himself, the Romney campaign would spend all their time attacking the messenger. He also is just making ends meet (you don’t have a degree and tend bar if you have better options), but actually turned down paid interviews. His main concern was hurting the people who employed him.
Can we really trust Scott Proudy? In 2005, he stole food from a poor family of starving alligators. Sounds like just another Chicago thug to me, helping thug-Obama with his thuggish tactics.
I imagine there will be comparisons with James O’Keefe. But there are substantial differences:
Prouty was just passively recording a speech Romney made. He was not attempting to set up a conversation like O’Keefe was.
Prouty released his full tape and not just an edited version like O’Keefe originally did.
Romney was the actual candidate who was running for office not just an independent organization that had been associated with a candidate during a previous campaign.
I’m not sure that he will be compared with O’Keefe. If that was going to happen, it would have happened when the tapes came out, even if he was anonymous.
Thinking about it, I’m not so sure there will be much of a smear campaign at all, given that the election is over and Romney is dead politically.
The guy’s a big hero right now, and apparently not trying to capitalize on it in spite of financial difficulties. Plus he risked alligators to pull a drowning woman from a car, and the police refused to go in the canal without a shotgun. All of that makes him very sympathetic. Attacking him could backfire badly. It would also draw attention back to the whole 47% discussion and the so-called “class war” which the right seems to be losing in public opinion. His opponents’ best tactic may be simply to ignore him and not draw attention to him.
Try to imagine Limbaugh attacking this guy. He’s still stinging from the Sandra Fluke backlash.
That doesn’t mean that Prouty isn’t in danger from some lone nut.
I also wonder about his legal jeopardy. Some states have laws against recording without the permission of the subjects. I would think that any prosecutor would stay far away from this, but who knows?
Can a public figure (and no figure is more public than someone running for president of the US of A) expect not to be recorded, even at a private event such as this? Not asking you so much as wondering what of our legal folks has to say.
I’m surprised that this guy is getting praised for not trying to capitalize on his work. Seems rather foolish not to. He did a really smart (and probably brave) thing, and should rewarded accordingly.