Much has come out about Andrew Breitbart's now-infamous "Hooker & Pimp" charade, and smear campaign against ACORN. Now that ACORN has been cleared and it has been proven that the video was heavily edited and that James O'Keefe was in fact not dressed as a pimp, the community organizing group is firing back and the rats are scattering, begging for help.
Hannah Giles, who posed as a hooker in Breitbart's hit piece, is now appealing to wealthy, Republican donors to help pay her legal fees. Her appeal has come in the form of a letter, (pictured above) which can be described as nothing less than a delusional, right wing rant that is sure to trigger your gag reflex. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Sean Hannity himself wrote it. Notice how she claims credit for the video, referring to it as "my undercover video."
Poor thing, she chose to lie down with dogs and now she's crying about the fleas.
When will Breitbart apologize for the phony O'Keefe/pimp-dressing ACORN story? I've been writing a lot about this story as has Neiwert and many others because it reminded us what "ratf*&king is all about. O'Keefe is Breitbart's Nixonian hit man.
Last September, when the ACORN scandal that his website helped launch was breaking in the press, Andrew Breitbart wrote a column for The Washington Times detailing the rollout of the undercover, right-wing gotcha. He recalled a 2009 meeting with "filmmaker and provocateur James O'Keefe" that took place in Breitbart's office in June. It was there that O'Keefe played the columnist the surreptitiously recorded videos he'd made with his sidekick, Hannah Giles, and which captured the two famously getting advice from ACORN workers on how prostitutes could skirt tax laws.
In his Times column, Breitbart was quite clear about what he saw that day in his office: He watched videos of O'Keefe "dressed as a pimp" sitting inside ACORN offices "asking for -- and getting -- help" from the misguided employees.
But today we know that's almost certainly not true. Breitbart didn't huddle in his office and watch clips of O'Keefe "dressed as a pimp" chatting with ACORN employees, because based on all the available evidence, O'Keefe wasn't dressed as a pimp while taping inside the ACORN offices.
Make no mistake: Last fall, both Breitbart and O'Keefe, with the help of Fox News, did their best to confuse people about that fact. It's true the duo seemed to purposefully push that falsehood and mislead the public and the press about the ACORN story. And more importantly, they did it to make the ACORN workers captured on video look like complete jackasses for not being able to spot O'Keefe's pimp ruse a mile away.
This story is important. There's a long tradition of undercover muckraking that's initiated many an important social change in this country. But this isn't muckraking, it's political theatre. The level of cynical deception in this "story" runs several layers deeper than anything I've ever seen before, tapping into some really nasty, subterranean veins of stereotype, prejudice and racism --- on everyone's part --- to make what ends up being a completely distorted point.
The fact that what should have been instantly seen as an obviously absurd proposition was taken at face value even by the US congress and the major media institutions of this country should inform us a little bit about how tenuous our racial progress might just be. This was a shameful episode deserving of more scrutiny than it's gotten so far...read on
Congress should immediately reinstate funds to ACORN. This knee-jerk action by Congress was a travesty.
Remember, James O'Keefe's partner on an abortion documentary stopped working with him. She said he edited the video in a misleading way to make it look like things happened that didn't. (Imagine that!)
Anyway, now he and his newest collaborator can explain to a federal judge why he broke Pennsylvania's wiretap laws:
The Philadelphia-office director of the anti-poverty group ACORN filed a civil lawsuit late Thursday in federal district court alleging that two conservative filmmakers violated state law when they recorded an interview with her without her consent and then disseminated it.
State law prohibits the intentional interception, disclosure or use of oral communications.
The lawsuit alleges James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles showed up at ACORN's Philadelphia office last July "on the pretext" they were there for housing and mortgage advice and interviewed director Katherine Conway-Russell in her office.
According to the lawsuit, O'Keefe and Giles met with Conway-Russell in an "attempt to entrap" ACORN workers into behaving inappropriately. Conway-Russell told O'Keefe and Giles that she could help them only with mortgage opportunities but not with other matters, the lawsuit said.
O'Keefe and Giles later disseminated the audio and video recording of the interview to "injure and harm" Conway-Russell, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.
David Rudovsky, Conway-Russell's attorney, declined comment on the lawsuit. Contacted on his cell phone, O'Keefe declined comment and didn't respond to a reporter's e-mail questions.
O'Keefe and Giles attracted national media attention last summer when, posing as a pimp and prostitute, they approached two female seasonal workers in ACORN's Baltimore office, made a secret video recording of the meeting, then posted it online.
This really is beyond the pale. Even after Dennis Kucinich reminds Hannah Storm that his wife, Elizabeth, is a professional woman, and then relays his wife's Master's Degree in International Conflict Resolution, let alone her vast charitable work in Africa, the CBS talking head persists in asking to see the tongue stud.
The Kuciniches are to be commended for politely telling her, in so many words, to stuff it.
You can let CBS know what you think of Hannah Storm's so-called journalism here.
Vice President Dick Cheney, moving swiftly to replace an indicted aide, on Monday named attorney David Addington as his chief of staff and John Hannah as his national security adviser...read on"
