It remains the top Google search for “ACORN video“: FOX News’ credulous “reporting” of the two kids who posed as a pimp and prostitute and entered various ACORN headquarters to ferret out the wrongdoers among them. The scandal as FOX continues to see it – despite overwhelming law enforcement evidence to the contrary – is that an ACORN volunteer is seen on the video confessing to the murder of her ex-husband. But is that where the story actually is? Or is there some other illumination to be gleaned from this whole affair? We’ve seen lots of video taken from the front of the camera, but let’s take a moment to look at who was behind the camera, posing as a “pimp.”
Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, purveyors of thespian sexual favours.
Meet Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, the two activists who journeyed into the Heart of Darkness, also known as “The Ghetto.” One can hardly imagine a more appropriate pair to pose as two drug-addicted, hard-bitten inner city thugs with a taste for the sex trade. The video they produced shows the realistic method acting and authentic attire they employed in their subterfuge. Who among the volunteers at ACORN, many of whom have spent their lives in the streets where prostitutes ply their wares, could help but fall for their crafty ways?
After all, nothing say’s “hooker” like blond hair, healthy skin, expensive slut-gear and a full set of teeth. I can see this bad, bad, pimpin’ man screaming now, “Bitch betta have my latte!!”
Only FOX News could be so eager to grind their axes as to fall for this ridiculous scam. The only way anyone would go to these two dolts for sexual favours is if they were looking for a sexual act known as “The Full Milk Toast.” When I first heard about some of the video they captured, I was a little worried. But then I saw the third video – the one with the supposed murderer – and then I saw the kids who tried to pull this off and the whole thing just collapsed under its own farcical weight.
It reveals something far more compelling about FOX News viewers and their concept of what “The Ghetto” is that they would be equally willing to fall for this nonsense. You really do have to be from somewhere at least as snow-white as Utah to believe that:
- These two idiots could pass for a “hooker” and a “pimp.”
- That dressing for a Cozumel night club and dressing for a night of heavy prostitute work are the same thing: a slut’s a slut.
- That anything so exact as a “hooker” and a “pimp” really exists in the world: these are not professions for which you get a certification.
- That “hookers” and “pimps” regularly announce themselves as such.
- That “hookers” and “pimps” import their prostitutes from El Salvador; that “hookers” and “pimps” have enough money to fly someone in from El Salvador – coach, one would presume, but even so… – but can’t think of anything better to do with their money than visit ACORN offices in search of cheap rental property.
- That the idle question, “how much do you charge,” is answerable with a set list of charges and services, like your local chimney sweep.
- That people who commit murder routinely share this information with strangers whom they meet for the first time; that murder in “The Ghetto” is a thing for which such a cavalier attitude is commonplace.
But facts don’t seem to matter much to the executives at FOX News, who continue to allow their “journalists” to spew hate about an organization upon whose head not a single conviction has fallen so far. Neither it seems do facts matter to their audience, for whom FOX News serves as a means to reinforce their beliefs at the expense of reality. At issue is the shared socio-political axe FOX and it’s audience have to grind; not facts or even half-assed observation, either of which would have forbade them to cover this “story.”
What is worse is the lemming-like behavior of the Mainstream Media and Democratic politicians, both of whom are being led by the nose for fear of looking weak on voter fraud. Since when as FOX News ever proven itself to be worth of such unqualified and unexamined sourcing? What major news has the FOX News network ever broken that turned out to be legitimate in any way, apart from being handed interviews and White House leaks by a Bush White House that was friendly to it’s cause?
And all of this built on the “work” of a minister’s daughter and an MBA.
This site is a political site, primarily, with a ton of other random subjects as suit my fancy and that of my blogger friends who are good enough to help me out. I am generally uncomfortable delving into subjects such as the Brittanee Drexel case because there’s not a lot I can add to the conversation and because I feel like those of us in alternative media and media generally who have nothing to contribute aught not to interfere.
I understand that this crisis affects a lot of people and that those people deserve to have their pain acknowledged by their community. In fact, I am much more personally aware than most readers know, though by no means among the directly affected. But at the same time as I acknowledge the need for local media coverage, I find the national media coverage of such subjects largely ghoulish, voyeuristic and opportunistic. So while this space will remain largely silent on the condition of the ongoing investigation and on the suffering of Brittanee, her family, her friends and the coping of all those kids and teachers and parents and custodians and security guards and principles and so many others whom she knew and or went to school with, I felt as though I aught to address the one subject for which this website is suited: the media.
The South Carolina press has finally caught wind of the fact that Brittanee Drexel’s prom – along with that of hundreds of other Gates-Chili kids innocent of the entire awful affair – is this Saturday night. That means that the national media – who has already been watching this case – is also aware. You know what that means, don’t you?
Swarms of cameras outside of the party house where the kids are having their prom. Cameras and journalists pushing for a spot closer to the door, eager to interview kids who know nothing more than they do. Kids who can’t get inside because the media’s in the way; Can’t get in the way to their own prom because of people who will forget this case in a month. Maybe even a few kids who won’t go in, just because the media is there.
So, if you’re listening down there in New York, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox News and all the rest of the Katzenjammer Kids: do us a favour and have your local affiliates – who have to live here – do a bit of light filming and let it go at that. Let these kids have their prom.
I know I shouldn’t be surprised that, when discussing the replacement of one out of nine Supreme Court Justices who define the sharpest points of the Constitution our nation is built upon, the mainstream media feels OK to boil the whole thing down to, “well, he’s just going to replace a Librull wih a Librull.” But I still am.
And I’m even more surprised when, in practically the same breath, the same media heads describe the outgoing Justice Souter as, “the George H.W. Bush appointment who was considered a home run for the Conservatives who took a sudden Librull shift once he donned the robe.” One might have thought that one concept woud necessarily override another, perhaps sparking a serious discussion of issues and Constitutional law, rather than simple and irrelevant political labels. That one would apparently be wrong.
Not that it’s anything new for him, necessarily, but it’s great writing. This is the mainstream talking.
Not to pretend that either Left or Right, Republican or Democrat actually holds the morel high ground as an intrinsic quality. Far from it. But we keep hearing over and over again on the news that the pressure to investigate torture is coming from the Left. As if the shit-storm we’re seeing right now could possibly be generated by the relatively small group of independents on the Left.
We know that the media loves to drive the Right-Left Bloodsport story, but the idea that a bunch of cigarette-smoking, absinthe-drinking, goatee-wearing bongo-playing poet intellectuals have driven the story of Americans torturing perceived enemies into the tops of all the headlines is simply absurd. This story is being driven by a genuine outrage across a large section of the American public over – call me over sensitive – genuinely outrageous stuff.
And for fuck’s sake, people, does it not matter to anyone in the MSM that crimes appear to have been committed? Politics be damned. Optics be damned. Crimes committed in a nation of laws need to be prosecuted, even if you think they were justified; justification is a question for opinion makers, immaterial to the proper prosecution of laws.
Even more frustrating about the conversation – and even more of a measure of the psychosis that the War on Terror has thrown a large portion of our nation’s power structure, as reflected by the media that bathes itself in that power – is the idea that, because there’s a war going on, we cannot stop to examine our mistakes. This is simply not the case and there is simply no precedent for that type of heedlessness in our history. Plenty of prosecutions have happened in war time, from the Revolutionary War right up to the present day.
I would like someone in the media to patiently explain to my obviously ignorant ass what, precisely, about the United States of America continuing to prosecute it’s laws would embolden the enemy? What about the United States of American proving that it’s laws can withstand it’s institutions and it’s institutions can withstand it’s laws makes us weak?
We derive our strength from our laws. Crimes appear to have been committed. A proper investigation, even if no prosecutions or convictions proceed from it, is the only strategic move.
Shouldn’t the Democrat and Chronicle at least mention the fact that Eric Massa has introduced credit card reform legislation when discussing credit card reform legislation in a news article? Gosh, maybe they didn’t know. They should really read more blogs over there. . .
Rachel Barnhart has the story at 13WHAM.com, and it appears as though Senator Chuck Schumer was the one who ultimately put the pressure on TW to “Stop the Cap,” as they say.
Tomorrow morning at 7:30am on CW-16, I will be discussing the post-mortem of what happened and why and what happens going forward. Tune in and comment on the site!
Meanwhile, back in the world of *fake* protests. . .
Check out this video from TalkingPointsMemo.com. They posted it because they want you to note that the Fox News Anchor basically admits to giving the Tea Bagging movement “P.R.” and “promotion.” But what I want you to notice is the absurdity of the Conservative talking head getting all “clutch the pearls” over the sexual innuendos surrounding “tea bagging,” and how that proves MSNBC is so biased against this noble protest.
Um. . . “Tea Bagging” has been an expression meaning lowering one’s genitalia into the mouth of a willing participant for well over fifteen years that I know of. It was you guys who decided to adopt the name, bonehead. Not our problem, just live with it.
OK, after all this talk, I have a question: has everyone – media, protesters, everyone – forgotten that “tea bagging” is the process of dropping one’s scrotum into the mouth of a. . oh, let’s call them “a loved one?” Seriously, how can this be an acceptable term to use in the media?
The Republican Party is actually co-opting an anti-tax fever movement whose key phrase has a double entente which is sexual at minimum with vaguely homosexual overtones. And no one seems to want to talk about that. Insane.
I wonder whether the media referring to rightfully pissed off citizens of this country as pitchfork-wielding local hick goons helps or hurts the situation? What’s the upside?
