1. State of the Union-I thought it was great but what does it matter? 30 million people hate him no matter what he says or does so I'm still feeling like a cynical and bitter fuck today. They want him to fail especially if it means success for this country...which would mean they were wrong about their ideology...which means the end of all that is holy.
2. No Ben-I think Ben Bernanke should not be elected to a second term as Fed Chair. Clearly, he wants to maintain the status quo on Wall Street. How about we nominate Jim Manzi? Or Bruce Bartlett?
3. Karma-Apparently conservative activist James O'Keefe, last seen dressed like a pimp and entrapping ACORN (aka actually being the person engaging in voter fraud) has now been arrested. Apparently, O'Keefe and some of his pals thought it would be cool to try to tap into Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu's phone system. Ah, the mid 20s mafia (geek conservative subset)....I take comfort in the fact that if they do go to prison, they can enjoy all the "luxuries" from our hard earned tax dollars:).
40 comments:
You thought the SOTU was great? Which lie did you enjoy the most? the promise of additional transparency?
James O'Keefe freaking rocks. Do you know why he and his band of merry men were really there?
I was shocked to learn that one of the guys was a fellow U of M Morris alum. Not shocked that a fellow alum could be part of such an endeavor. Rather, shocked that there were actually any raging conservatives on that campus. My invite to what must have been very secret meetings must have gotten lost among the constant bombardment of "Save this..." and "Free that..." messages. Put another way, a school doesn't rename a street "Cesar Chavez Blvd" because it's full of people who support lower taxes and smaller government.
RIP J.D. Salinger
Do with 'Catcher...' whatever you will, but if you have not read 'For Esme - With Love and Squalor' you have missed out on one of the greatest works of American literature.
3: Let’s face it, all charges will be dropped, because he is poor white trash. This Tuesday, James O’Keefe was arrested by the FBI, for entering a federal property under false pretenses with the intent to commit a felony and maliciously interfering with a telephone system operated and controlled by the United States of America. They were dressed up as telephone company employees with tool belts and fluorescent jackets. It appears to be a bungled attempt to wiretap the office of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, in Louisiana and paid by Andrew Breitbart.
I concur on Bernanke. I also think that Geithner should lose his job. I've never trusted the guy; he just doesn't inspire any confidence in me. Anyone else with close ties to the bailout and Wall Street should also be fired. This has become a total mess.
Not that the bailout was totally wrong. It's just that Wall Street got all that free money and continued to screw over the rest of the country. Just like they've been doing since the Reagan "Greed is Good" days. It's not like the market actually produces anything, after all. It's just a giant shell game. And like all shell games, you've got to watch it very closely.
This is where I really have to part ways with Manzi on his ideas of "innovation" and regulation. Market innovations are rarely good for the economy because they don't produce anything new. They just provide more ways to shuffle the same money around without producing anything new. We should be promoting real innovation in the technology and energy sectors, not finding new kinds of derivatives and credit default swaps.
So, we should encourage market innovation, but we should go into it fully realizing that the people doing it are driven only by greed and a desire to win. They have no interest in making the economy run well or helping the American people do better. Thus, they should be watched extremely closely, with full transparency and nasty penalties for pulling fast ones.
Paul Krugman should be put in a decision-making capacity somewhere. He's one of the few guys who seems to understand what the hell's going on with the economy and is honest about it. He called the real estate bubble years ago, while everyone else was cheerleading what was obviously an impossible outcome: that real estate prices would go up forever.
When 20-year-old girls are buying four and five houses with no real income and no money down, you know something very wrong is going on. Pretty much everyone except Krugman ignored the totally untenable expansion in the real estate market.
Ah, but blk, Krugman is a commmie pinko, dontcha know?
"They want him to fail especially if it means success for this country…"
Exactly! Obama's failure to implement his policies would mean that this country has a shot at continued success. His success would mean this country's failure.
So, we should encourage market innovation, but we should go into it fully realizing that the people doing it are driven only by greed and a desire to win.
No shit sherlock. I suspect that you haven't produced anything of value to society at large, let alone some small segment of it. So perhaps you should STFU about people that actually do provide things that other people want.
And the financial meltdown was largely tied to an over-heated housing market because EVERY politician honors the "wisdom" of home-owning. It is core to the American Dream and no mainstream politician is going against that. You would've seen a lot less speculation by 20 year old girls (and everyone else) if there had not been a manic desire for every American to own a home.
Entrapping Acorn? I think he just put the camera on them and filmed what they said. You apparantly don't like what they said so you blame the cameraman.
Ever heard of the process known as editing, rld?
Editing and entrapment are 2 different things. You can't defend what they said on those tapes either. Go home.
No, I think I'm going to stay right here. Mark said "entrapping" not entrapment.
Entrapping tr.v. 1.To catch in or as if in a trap. 2.To lure into danger, difficulty, or a compromising situation. (See Synonyms at catch.)
3. To lure into performing a previously or otherwise uncontemplated illegal act.
I don't know what they actually said because I haven't seen the fully unaltered tape. O'Keefe asked them questions and then used answers from other questions. It was all a load of bullshit designed to disrupt an organization whose purpose is get people to vote. Most of the people they get to vote are typically liberal so O'Keefe's desire was to prevent them from voting.
You might have a point, except that they also released the complete unedited audio (with full transcripts) from those investigations here.
The other shoe on the O'Keefe arrest story has now dropped. The initial story didn't make sense. Now it does.
So, Ed, are you saying that we should just believe the full transcripts as you should believe the full transcripts and factual back ups of Michael Moore? If that's the case, consider our view of ACORN and Moore to be the same.
As far the other "shoe" being dropped...
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/29/senate.office.arrest/index.html?iref=allsearch
...I wonder how you would react if it was a Muslim extremist proclaiming his innocence...
It's not _______ when we do it!
"…we should just believe the full transcripts…"
That whizzing sound you heard was the point flying over your head once again.
Full. Audio. as in Recordings.
My point stands, Luke. How do we know it's the full audio/transcripts? Because O'Keefe says so? If that's the case, then Michael Moore tells the complete truth in all of his films.
I hate doing that. That was me.
Plus this correction:
Full. Unedited. Audio. as in Recordings.
We KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that Moore lied in his movies because we can compare what he claims with the actual events, plaques, etc., that he talks about. Do you have any REASONS (as in evidence of editing) to think the unedited recordings have actually been edited? Your blind, unthinking partisanship does not count as a reason.
You know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Moore lied in his films? Wow....of course that does make sense when you think about it, Ed. After all, you know how God thinks as well:)
Of course Moore has to have lied because if he didn't and he's right about a few things...maybe even one or two...hoo boy...that's going to be hard day for you, isn't it, Ed?
But back to O"Keefe. How do you know that they are
Full. Unedited. Audio. as in Recordings.
?
Based on the link from biggovernment.com? So, by that logic everything on Huffington Post is 100 % accurate as well?
I buy the fact that some ACORN employees were out of line but O'Keefe didn't show the ones that did kick him out of the office. Of course, he claims that never happened. Is he lying? And if he is, what then?
Regardless, he did accomplish his mission of making certain that certain people don't vote.
"You know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Moore lied in his films?"
Abso'frakkin'lutely. For example, in "Bowling for Columbine", Moore took snippets from two different speeches and mashed them together (with a crowd shot in between) to make him say something he did not actually say. That's called lying.
In fact, it's exactly the kind of lie you're accusing O'Keefe of. We know that Moore lied because the full video of those speeches is available, which makes it easy to show exactly how Moore used them to lie.
"How do you know that they are … Based on the link from biggovernment.com?"
A) Genetic fallacy. AGAIN! How the F*** do you expect your students to learn if you CAN'T?!?
B) That link is where you can download the recordings AND CHECK THEM OUT FOR YOURSELF!!! If they've been edited (which is easy to spot in live recordings of people talking), then you can point it out. You know… it's that EVIDENCE thing that you have so much trouble with.
"I buy the fact that some ACORN employees were out of line but O'Keefe didn't show the ones that did kick him out of the office."
Have you heard this parable?
"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."
What that means is that anything is possible once, maybe even twice. But when the same thing happens over and over and over again, then it establishes a pattern upon which background actors and policies can be identified. What he did was establish this pattern in the same way scientifically valid polls are conducted: by visiting numerous offices in different cities, states, and even completely different ends of the country to make sure this wasn't a localized problem.
"Of course, he claims that never happened. Is he lying?"
Do you have EVIDENCE that this happened? (Oops. There's that word again.) Shouldn't these places have had security cameras that they could have pulled footage from?
"Regardless, he did accomplish his mission of making certain that certain people don't vote."
What people are those?
Here's the deal, Ed. Both Moore and O'Keefe have an opinion and they want to get it across. They deliberately leave out information to strengthen the point they are trying to get across.
The difference between them is that Moore is a champion for what he perceives as justice. O'Keefe is an admitted follower of Saul Alinsky's ideas whose chief goal is to destroy the left. In the case of ACORN, O'Keefe's goal was to disrupt their organization and prevent them from helping people who tend to lean more liberal vote. The propaganda campaign against ACORN is exactly like the one ran against Jews in the 1930s. Compare and contrast.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sturmer.htm
Your little parable about "enemy action" pretty much tells me that you buy the propaganda. Sad...
"They deliberately leave out information…"
Again: Do. You. Have. E.V.I.D.E.N.C.E. That. O'Keefe. Did. So?
"O'Keefe's goal was to disrupt their organization and prevent them from helping people who tend to lean more liberal vote."
So if the organization is engaging in illegal and immoral activity, what is the problem with disrupting it? Furthermore, if people stop listening to an organization engaged in illegal and immoral activity when deciding who to vote for, where is the harm? That sounds like a good thing.
I just realized I goofed in what I wrote earlier. Here's the corrected sentence:
For example, in "Bowling for Columbine", Moore took snippets from two different speeches by Charlton Heston and mashed them together (with a crowd shot in between) to make him say something he did not actually say. That's called lying.
There. I feel better now. In fact, watch it again. Notice the color of the background and Heston's tie before the crowd shot. Then notice that they're different when Moore "returns" to the shot of Heston.
"Your little parable about "enemy action" pretty much tells me that you buy the propaganda."
I used this parable because it was a handy example of The Scientific Method in action. That is, observing a pattern of events then developing and testing a theory which best fits the evidence. But if you want to call the scientific method "propaganda", well…
Here's the deal, Ed
Ah, the light slowly dawns (but dawn it does) on M that these aren't the same, but he can't concede that point, gracefully. Instead he attempts the classic sidestep.
Well, old habits do die hard.
Juris, are you saying that O'Keefe and Moore are different? Wow.
Ed, do you have any evidence that O'Keefe did not tamper with the audio or video? I don't have access to the original source tapes so I'm saying I'm not sure. I'm asking questions and thinking critically...just as I do with Moore. Go back and read my comments in this thread. Jeff C. claims that he edited the tapes and used answers for other questions he asked. I'm certain the is basing his post on this...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27139.html
“It is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist ‘filmmaker’ O’Keefe and his partner in crime,’ ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis said in a statement over the weekend. “And, in fact, a crime it was—our lawyers believe a felony—and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators.”
So, let's find out if they are or not from an impartial source. I'm not going to believe biggovernment.com any more than you would believe Huffington Post.
"Ed, do you have any evidence that O'Keefe did not tamper with the audio or video?"
Accusation of lying versus a statement that otherwise stands in the face of immediate and obvious evidence.
Are you going to start asking Ed to provide evidence that gypsies do not dance naked on the moon?
Of course the original videos released were edited. Most people wouldn't bother sitting through hours of video just for a minute or two of important information. So the videos were edited for brevity.
Of course, that leaves open the perfectly reasonable challenge that they were edited to take things out of context. (Though as I recall, the responses by the Acorn employees made it pretty clear that the context wasn't messed with.) That's why the full audio was made availabe, to show that that they did not mess with the context like Mikey Moore did.
When you're making a live recording like this, it's really easy for even an amateur to spot editing in an audio file of people talking. If you try to cut in the middle of a phrase, of someone talking, changes in pitch, volume and intonation stick out like a sore thumb. If you try to cut when no one is talking, clearly audible background noises make a cut clear. And of course, if more than one person is talking at once, cuts are literally impossible.
Yes, I have made accusations of Mikey Moore lying in the past. I also backed up those accusations by pointing to Moore's specific lies, and the evidence that showed that he lied. In today's example, it didn't even require looking outside of "Bowling for Columbine" itself. All I had to point out was the color of Heston's tie and the background to show that Moore jammed two speeches together.
Now you are the one making the claim that O'Keefe lied. Just as the onus was on me to show that Moore lied, the onus is now on YOU to show that O'Keefe lied.
I do not claim a double standard for myself by demanding different rules for you than I expect of myself. Nor do I accept a double standard from you.
You made the claim. You back it up.
"I'm not going to believe biggovernment.com any more than you would believe Huffington Post."
STOP THE GODDAMN GENETIC FALLACY BULLSHIT!!!! Biggovernment.com is the ORIGINAL source of those recordings. I don't expect you to believe them just because they're posted on that site. I do expect you to download the audio and USE YOUR OWN DAMN EARS!!! In other words, CHECK OUT THE EVIDENCE (there's that word again) FOR YOURSELF!
Hell, do you even know what the word "fallacy" means?!?
Juris, are you saying that O'Keefe and Moore are different?
Has Moore been charged with a federal felony? ;-) Of course they are different - motives obviously and yes methods too.
Moore is not an Alinski-ite, O'Keefe is. Moore is more in line with Riefenstahl, O'Keefe is not.
And M, don't EVER claim that you think critically wrt Moore - you have vociferously defended his lies by justifying that he did them in a good cause.
Mark, am I lead to believe that you are an educator. Please dear God, let this not be the case.
Are you listening to Glenn beck now? "Compare and contrast" are his buzz words at the moment.
NAD,
Sadly, Marxy is a teacher.
"All I had to point out was the color of Heston's tie and the background to show that Moore jammed two speeches together."
Have you watched the entire film, Ed?
I never made the claim that O'Keefe lied...I'm wondering if he did. I'm thinking critically about his entire operation with ACORN, are you? Do you take everything that was said in those videos and O'Keefe (now arrested on suspicion of a federal crime) as the gospel 100 percent truth? I don't take everything Moore says as the gospel truth.
Juris, hilarious:)
Re-read Last's review of the last Moore film. My central critique of Moore is that he demonizes the word "Capitalism" much in the same way the right demonizes the word "Socialism." There's no difference really at all.
I also felt personally offended by this framing of Charlton Heston but, once again, I have to remind you that I am biased when it comes to one of the finest actors of our time.
"Have you watched the entire film, Ed?"
I gave a single example because that's all the time I wanted to spend. But we've been over this ground before and I REFUSE to waste time going over it again. That film was FILLED TO THE BRIM with lies. (What the bomber plaque said. The relationship between the NRA and KKK. The bank's gun giveaway. Etc., Etc., Etc.)
It doesn't matter what conclusion the film drew (even if I agree with it) because it is IMPOSSIBLE TO DRAW A VALID CONCLUSION BASED ON LIES!
That's how logic works. If even a single step in a logical series is wrong (and Moore got most of them wrong), then the entire conclusion is wrong. Period. Full stop. Looking at an entire argument cannot change this fundamental fact.
Mathematics is a numerical form of logic. Do you pretend your answer to a math problem is correct if you know you did one of the intermediate steps wrong? No. (Well, you might.) This principle is well understood by most people. Any invalid step in a logical process invalidates the conclusion.
"I never made the claim that O'Keefe lied...I'm wondering if he did."
Let's check the transcript, shall we…
"Both Moore and O'Keefe have an opinion and they want to get it across. They deliberately leave out information to strengthen the point they are trying to get across."
That is an assertion that O'Keefe lied by omission. Not "could have"; "Did… 'deliberately'".
I admit that it is possible that he lied. I do know that the evidence he provided was solid, and that Acorn provided zero counter-evidence even though they were VERY aggressive in defending themselves. That leads to a high degree of confidence that he did not lie about ACORN.
As for his arrest, he did apparently enter the office under false pretenses. That's sufficient grounds for an arrest which he deserved. There is no evidence of wiretapping equipment and somehow damaging the phone system (which would guarantee prison time) seems farfetched. His explanation makes sense, though his tactics were at least stupid. I expect further information and fallout from that incident.
But this is important: A stupid action by any person does not negate the truth of something else discovered by that person. Every truth claim must be examined on its own merits. (That's why the Genetic Fallacy—which you are once AGAIN flirting with—does not work. Whether or not something is true has absolutely nothing to do with what person discovers or points out that truth.)
" My central critique of Moore is that he demonizes the word "Capitalism" much in the same way the right demonizes the word "Socialism.""
Given your definition of "good capitalism", that sentence is completely meaningless.
Michael Moore is such a cute and cuddly hypocrite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDBBsMoeqt0&feature=player_embedded
Ed, I can't remember if said you saw it or not. If you haven't, I don't think it's fair for you to judge it and refuse to watch it because someone else told you that Moore lied. If I have a problem with a particular commentator, I will listen to what he or she has to say or watch their film and make my judgment from there. You can certainly have an opinion about the film without having seen it but it will be uninformed and lacking in data.
Moore is very careful in his films to frame the opinion parts separate from the fact parts. I don't think he lied at all. He simply offered his clearly biased opinion. The scene at the end with Heston is very similar to the O'Keefe videos. I actually hate that scene but only because I love CH so, again, the bias thing.
O'Keefe deliberately did leave out information. He lied and said he was a pimp trying to get housing for his prostitutes. By your math above, that's lying. Does that mean that his tapes are invalid? He had an opinion that he wanted to illustrate and did it quite well. He was also on a mission to destroy ACORN (see:Wrecking Crew). And I'm still wondering if the complete unedited versions are, in fact, that.
If you read my State of the Union series on here, I'm sad to report that I've had to give up on good capitalism. We'll never get it back nor should we.
"I don't think it's fair for you to judge it and refuse to watch it because someone else told you that Moore lied."
You keep making this claim over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over and …
Again, how the heck does watching the whole thing somehow overcome the lies and distortions Mikey Moore put into it? Is there some sort of alchemy that magically turns lies into Truth just by cramming as many lies into your brain as possible? Does he have some sort of Reality Distortion Field that's more powerful that Steve Jobs' famous field? How does a bunch of lies and distortions somehow add up to a valid conclusion?
It's not like anyone denies those things are in there… not even you!
"I actually hate that scene but only because I love CH so, again, the bias thing."
So it's not the lie thing that bothers you, but that it's used against a person you admire? That's a huge difference between the two of us. I hate lies because they're a violation of truth, while you only hate things because of their affect on personalities. (I do get annoyed when someone I like is harmed by the truth, but only in the sense of violation that someone I admired did something stupid.)
You might say that my standard is truth, while yours is a cult of personality. It's no wonder you can't understand us conservatives when we bash on something someone did wrong that you think we are supposed to be in the tank for, such as George W. Bush. You're attempting to analyze a truth based approach using a personality based standard.
"O'Keefe … lied and said he was a pimp trying to get housing for his prostitutes."
Congratulations. You've just ruled out every single undercover operation in the history of mankind. Recall all the undercover intelligence operatives infiltrating Al Qaeda and other Muslim Brotherhood groups. Pull out all the undercover police working to infiltration drug dealer networks, gangs, mafia, etc. That also goes for every single investigative reporter and government watchdog. They're doing no good because they have to lie to the people they're investigating in order for the person being investigated to trust them enough to expose their true motives and activities to the investigator.
In fact, while we're at it, why don't we overturn the convictions of every person ever convicted as the result of an undercover investigation and put the investigators in jail.
Is that good enough for you?
The simple fact is, undercover operations can only work correctly if the investigator lies. Any criminal with even a glimmer of intelligence knows that you don't openly commit or admit to your crimes in front of a camera if you want to stay out of jail. They will only do so to someone they think they can trust to not expose their crimes. That means lying to the target is a requirement.
Notice again who O'Keefe lied to: the ACORN employees. (Note that Moore also frequently lies to people he's filming. Mr. Heston is prime example number one in this thread.) That is considered acceptable (if an unpleasant fact of life) in order to uncover wrongdoing.
But once the investigation is over, in order for the results to be valid, the investigator must NOT lie to those he is giving the evidence to. He cannot have pressured the target to commit a crime. He cannot distort the evidence. And he cannot lie when giving testimony. If he does, then the results of the investigation are considered invalid.
Moore broke that rule by lying to his audiences. O'Keefe (as far as we know) did not.
"I'm still wondering if the complete unedited versions are, in fact, that."
Wondering… and asserting that they've been edited. But not investigating to discover if there is any actual E.V.I.D.E.N.C.E. of distortions. That's letting your bias speak, not facts.
"So it's not the lie thing that bothers you, but that it's used against a person you admire?"
It's both, actually. Just like O"keefe, Moore went into Heston's home to entrap him. At least in O'keefe's case he was not berating an elderly man. I think it sucks but that's just my opinion.
More later...I seem to be having computer issues...wtf is going on?
Moore went to Heston's home to twist his words into something other than what Heston actually meant. In other words, Moore was putting words into Heston's mouth.
O'Keefe just gave ACORN the opportunity to either do the right thing, or do what they did. He didn't make them break the law, nor did he twist their words into something contrary to what they actually said. Their own words and actions speak for themselves:
Tonja: [An ACORN employee] let me explain to you...once you guys get a tax return
Kenya: [whisper] Tonja Thompson. [audible] who is Andrea?
Tonja: that is my partner who is back there
James & Kenya: okay
Tonja: if you after you get your tax return done you are gonna go though them to your housing.
Kenya: she talked about August 8th which we would go to the library
Tonja: and then they would go through the price and everything okay, from now on when you are talking about your business performing artist dancing, because if you say prostitution cause it is illegal you are going to get shut down.
James: by whom?
Tonja: anybody
James: but not you guys?
Kenya: that’s because they are helping us
Tonja: she is not gonna say prostitution. See you are telling us this because we know what to say
Kenya: the system
James: you know what to say to whom?
Tonja: to people that you need to like the for the housing purposes for the tax purposes
James: okay
Tonja: you see what I am saying
James: so you are taking care of this for me
Tonja: I don't want you to say it to nobody
Kenya: we cant be like they are working a special favor for us we just need to know amongst ourselves that they are doing a favor for
Tonja: and if anyone asks you, your business is a performing artist, which you are, okay so you not lying
Kenya: that is kind of boosting my ego saying
Tonja: performing artist. So stop saying prostition
James: got it
Tonja: cause as soon as you say that people will shut you down because after you say that people don't what to hear what you are saying that is why the banks shut you down like they did because that is considered illegal
James: okay okay
Tonja: whereas a performing artist is not. So it's just a play on words sometimes
James: you got it we will comply
So tell me, where in this conversation does O'Keefe argue with her, try to put words in her mouth, or ask leading questions where she has no choice in how to respond?
Ed, I believe I've stated before that these employees should have been fired. I don't O"Keefe put words in their mouth but then again Moore didn't say he was anything other than Michael Moore. O'Keefe lied about who he and his partner were when he was there. Moore's motivation was to vent his anger and brow beat an old man. O'Keefe's was to take down an organization that helps lower to middle income people vote so Democrats would lose elections.
Unless...wait...what do you think O'Keefe's motivation was in doing all of this?
"I believe I've stated before that these employees should have been fired."
The Rogue Employee excuse only works if it's only one or two employees or in a limited geographical area. O'Keefe found the exact same "break the law" mentality in numerous offices, including those on both the East AND West coasts. That's no longer a Rogue Employee or Office, but a statistically significant indicator of systemic rot in ACORN.
Furthermore, if these employees were really rogue, why did ACORN pay for the lawyers to file a lawsuit to defend those employees?
"I don't O"Keefe put words in their mouth"
Wow. You finally admitted it. Good for you. Seriously!
"Moore didn't say he was anything other than Michael Moore."
I didn't claim Moore's lie was about who he was. It was about his purpose for the interview. Mr. Heston turned his back on Moore and walked away when he finally realized that Moore's purpose was not to get an honest and accurate understanding of Heston's position, but that Moore was intentionally twisting Heston's words into something entirely different.
"O'Keefe lied about who he and his partner were when he was there."
I'll type it again slowly so that maybe you'll understand it this time:
U N D E R C O V E R I N V E S T I G A T I O N ! ! ! ! !
"Moore's motivation"
Moore's motivation doesn't actually matter. Only what he did matters.
However, since you made the claim, do you even realize how stupid that sounds. All he wanted to do was humiliate an old man? Even us "evil" conservatives don't have that low of an opinion of Moore! He wanted to humiliate a defenseless old man for no other reason that he had a black heart full of evil, and who loves to pick on altzheimer suffers just because he can?!?
Does this mean that one of your personal heros is "just like Al Qaeda"?!?
It appears that his motive was far more prosaic. He had a point of view that he was pushing. That point of view is all over his movie. If he had to browbeat one of his political enemies to accomplish that goal, well, Moore isn't above that sort of thing.
"O'Keefe's [motivation] was"
And you know this because… ???
All hail, the great and powerful mind reader who can read the minds of people he doesn't know, but can't even read the written word!
I'll talk more about his motivation in a bit.
"an organization that helps lower to middle income people vote"
Is that what you're calling voter registration fraud this month?
Seriously, do you have any idea how easy it is to register to vote? It's practically like falling off a log. Do you have a driver's license? You're probably registered. Did you go to a DMV for a non-driver photo ID? You're probably registered. Do you have a phone? Call your local city hall and they'll get you everything you need. Need a ride to the polling place? Call your favorite party's office. They'll arrange a ride.
"so Democrats would lose elections."
If Democrats are winning elections solely because of that fraud, then I say Hallelujah!!! Fair and legal elections are critical to the proper functioning of our system of government.
"what do you think O'Keefe's motivation was in doing all of this?"
It. Doesn't. Matter!! What if he was trying to show how good ACORN was at handling illegal activity and found the opposite was true? What if he was trying to blackmail them, but ACORN refused to pay? What if he was trying to start a new Candid Camera show?
The simple fact is that he caught numerous ACORN employees consistently breaking the law of their own free will. NOTHING about his motives (which requires mind reading to determine) CHANGES THAT FACT !!!
Uh Oh,
It looks like Brave Sir Robin's Standard Response #10 has kicked in.
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