He has not seen the unedited tapes. O’Keefe has never released the unedited tapes.
He disagrees with you.
I assume this is the site where the unedited video and transcript was seen. It’s the Baltimore one, which is what caused the controversy.
[Complete ACORN Baltimore Child Prostitution Investigation Transcript.
by James O’Keefe](http://biggovernment.com/jokeefe/2009/09/10/complete-acorn-baltimore-prostitution-investigation-transcript/)
John, your premise is faulty. First off, you give us a cite to underscore a contention of illegal activity, but that very cite says there was no pattern of illegal activity. So there is little enough comfort there. All he can say is it doesn’t look good.
If you want to focus laser-like on the one incident, to hold it out as a gem of truth in a cesspools of lies, you’ve got one problem: did anyone O’Keefe talk to really believe that this pasty faced American cheese on white bread with mayo yuppie scum was actually a pimp?
Because if she didn’t believe that he was a pimp, and no urban black with the good sense God gave a goose would…then she could not have been breaking any laws. At the very outer limit of credulity, maybe, just maybe, she was thinking “Hell, yes, I’ll help this cottage-cheese mofo get into prison, be glad to!”. But that’s about it.
C’mon, John, if O’Keefe had strolled up to you, in costume or without, and told you he was a pimp, how many seconds would pass before you laughed in his face?
Look closer at what you quoted:
*“The videos were heavily edited. The sequence of some conversations was changed.”
" Some workers seemed concerned for Giles, one advising her to get legal help. In two cities, Acorn workers called the police. "*
So right off the bat, the idea that this was a slam dunk, and that ACORN is/was a criminal enterprise, needs to be revisited. This is in direct contrast to what many dopers claimed when the story broke. They swallowed the whole story, edited videos and all, then licked the extra off their lips. The story, as reported, was not properly vetted or delivered.
"But the most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context. "
Words, not actions. This statement is in reference to the suggestion that perhaps the editing also included moving phrases around. Or having them start talking about something and then chop it up to make it look like they were talking about something else. So what he’s saying is that some employees said really stupid things. He also says “damning,” not illegal, or allegedly illegal.
“Harshbarger’s report to Acorn found no “pattern of illegal conduct” by its employees.”
And wasn’t that the original issue? Those on the right would have us believe that ACORN was a criminal enterprise that used federal funds to run brothels full of illegal immigrant children, and got a tax deduction for it, while getting the children to vote for Democrats. That was found to be incorrect. Seems an apology would be appropriate. I’m going to take their silence to be apologetic enough. I feel bad they left you to clean up their mess while they’re off prepping Dr. Cassell for his big opening tomorrow.
*" But, he told me: “They said what they said. There’s no way to make this look good.” *
Note that they didn’t “do” anything, they said things. And the things they said weren’t illegal, they just “looked” bad.
"But the most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context. "
Again, “words” and “damning.” Not “actions” and not “illegal.”
So he points out that the tapes were heavily edited, and that some of the conversations were changed. He then clarifies that the conversations that “do not sound good” seem to not be edited out of context.
The point being, there was no wrong doing. There are tapes that have ACORN workers saying things that make ACORN look bad.
And for the record, this thread is fucking retarded. The NYT does not appear to be apologizing, but they do appear to be weaseling out of a total clusterfuck. I’d appreciate if in the future gonzomax would not be so quick to unslam a previous slamdunk. And at least have the decency to search for Shodan + ACORN and give us a couple of juicy quotes to kick things off.
Where did I ever say the activities were illegal?
I’m just going by what intelligent people (whom I have cited) who actually investigated this at the source said. I’m not guessing what anyone might have thought. Those people said there is no way to make this look good. No way.
Andrew Breitbart? Big Government? That turd-golem?
I can only assume that the purity of your unbiased and non-partisan centrism has protected your innocence from the stain of even knowing who he is. Maybe its best you don’t, over all, you’re a pretty good egg, and I hate to think how embarrassed you’ll be.
Let me put it this way: Hannity, Beck, Breitbart. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.
Ha, I clicked on that, and eventually got to a page that said, “Please Donate to ACORN Related Legal Defense Funds”
For some reason I assumed it meant the defense fund for ACORN. Turns out its for O’Keefe’s defense fund.
This whole debate about the exact details of this case is besides the point of this thread.
The OP contends that the NYT has retracted its story and that right wingers should apologize. He’s wrong. I don’t care about ACORN. I’m just saying the OP is an idiot.
Does anyone here actually agree with him?
Neatly evaded, a perfect veronica, you swept the cape in front of the horns and escaped untouched!
I didn’t ask what intelligent people thought, I asked what one intelligent people thought, specifically, you.
(John Cleese as English barrister) "I put it to you, sir, that if Mr. O’Keefe had met you under any circumstances and announced to you that he was a pimp, you would have collapsed into a state of helpless giggling!" (/John Cleese)
How much less likely is it, then, that a woman who (to all appearances) has some awareness of urban culture would accept that?
You wouldn’t believe him, I wouldn’t believe him, she sure as shit didn’t believe him!
I don’t want my point missed. Aiding and abetting is a crime and it’s what O’Keefe was implying with his vids. That no crimes were found is damning to O’Keefe’s credibility. The fact that a couple of employees didn’t look good in sound bite terms isn’t especially substantive.
Oddly enough, ACORN did have internal problems. But none of them were exposed by O’Keefe and none have been discussed thus far in this thread. This was a simple smear.
Just because they don’t pass your ideological litmus test, it doesn’t mean that every assertion they make is, by definition, a lie.
To think that way would make one a rigid ideologue unwilling to let facts disturb a cherished worldview.
It’s not even clear that he really presented himself as a pimp, as some of people in the OP’s link are saying:
Somehow, I think you’ll believe KvH.
Except in a narrow sense, I disagree. Evaluating sources is one of the core functions of the historian or scholar. Hannity et al are bad sources and should be dismissed pending further substantiation.
Let’s recall that O’Keefe is a proven liar and has received no censure from Breitbart. Their purported transcripts simply cannot be accepted uncritically without audit by a third party. (Then again, if they took steps to come clean -by providing all tapes and transcripts of the same- that would enhance their credibility.)
John, you lost me on that last turn there. Now you want to imply that maybe he never claimed to be a pimp? Well, then, gee whillikers, what the heck were they talking about? Are you suggesting that she introduced the question to their conversation? “Hey, white boy, you ever think of getting yourself some down ho’s and doing some pimpin’?”
What? The Nation? The nest of mealy-mouthed revisionist mensheviks who cringe at anyone more radical than David Fucking Broder? Spare me.
Well, you lost me on that one.
You obviously have never seen KvH in action. She makes Rachel Maddow look like Sean Hannity.
Well, no, that’s where you’re wrong. You choose the wrong thread to shit in. You said yourself you didn’t participate in the original ACORN threads. Well, within those were a lot of really stupid people saying a lot of really stupid things.
The first stupid thing was that the tapes weren’t doctored and that phrases weren’t shifted and taken out of context. Although the most “damning” statements were not altered, these articles explicitly state that the tapes were doctored, and that the sequence of phrases were changed.
So those that believed the tapes to be unedited should apologize.
Secondly, a lot of allegations were made that ACORN workers acted illegally. This was also shown to be false. They acted stupidly, and did things that looked bad, but nothing illegal. Again, an apology would be nice.
Lastly, the story was presented as, “O’Keefe goes in pretending to be a pimp and asking for ways to do things illegally…” Well, it turns out that’s not what he did. He went in (at least in one case) as a law student, looking for information to HELP a girl. So the story was sold to us incorrectly. I was under the impression he went in DRESSED as a pimp, and pretending to be a pimp. If you told me he went in acting like a law student the whole thing changes. I’d like an apology for that too.
After the NYT gets over the hand-wringing and their attempt to re-describe the past, perhaps Law and Order/GE can explain their oh so timely ACORN murder story they ran with as this issue was coming to light. Just as they slandered Joseph Jett with running a “based on true events” murder story while GE owned Kidder Peabody.
As for Mr O’Keefe… I will tell him what a old buddy told another guy who was getting ready to get some time in the joint. You might want to consider becoming a Muslim… or in Mr O’Keefe’s case slap some Nazi tatts on… make some friends…
Pointing out that the OP’s premise is false is not thread shitting.
I know what you’re trying to say, but I think overall you’re wrong on this. When a person becomes known to lie (or variations of that) they lose credibility, and then their truth is worthless. As a result, it’s not about rigid ideologue, it’s a matter of trust. If tomorrow Hannity/Beck/Palin told me bears shit in the woods, I’d still go to an encyclopedia to verify it. They have zero credibility, I trust The Onion more than I trust them.