No, Better This World isn’t about feeding hungry orphans or developing a cure for AIDS. Unfortunately, the movie is a feature length lie about David McKay and Bradley Crowder, two liberal activists convicted of domestic terrorism after plotting an attack against the 2008 Republican National Convention. 

—–

Incredibly, these convicted terrorists are the protagonists of this tale. The movie depicts them as victims, nothing but sweet “truth tellers” on a quest for “social justice.” All the while, Brandon Darby — the brave informant who worked with the FBI to expose McKay and Crowder’s terrible plot — is made out to be the film’s villain.  

It’s not often that men who “save the day”(and innocent lives) are portrayed as villains in a storyline. But consider the sources: the funders of this film are the notoriously liberal Corporation for Public Broadcasting , Sundance, and Film Independent . 

The producers of this “documentary,” Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega, clearly worked very hard to distort the truth.  These women worked with convicted felons whose own testimony (and the factual basis of the casework) is completely contrary to the story the film tells. However, the hard evidence against, and sworn testimonies of Crowder and McCay, didn’t stop the producers from working their sinister cinematic magic. 

First the facts: The confessed truth of these felons and from other sources used in the film is that these two men took their leftist hatred and activism to the brink in Minneapolis. Their planned attack included the use of Molotov cocktails to do major felony property damage. There is also no doubt they were willing to harm people if it meant disrupting the democratic process. However, the “new” leftist narrative that this so-called “documentary” puts forth is that those who turned these two over to the FBI, “entrapped” them into committing the crimes they did. 

The producers use every psychological trick in their arsenal to condition the audience into “feeling” that these convicted domestic terrorists are innocent young boys who never meant to hurt anyone, despite the facts of the case and their own testimony.  

For example, Better This World includes numerous pictures of the two domestic terrorists as children, features tear-jerking interviews with family members, supportive phone calls with girlfriends, and intimate discussions with the men while they sit in prison. 

Darby did not participate in the making of this “documentary.” Although, if one did not already know this, they would assume he did. 

The film relies heavily on archival footage of Darby from the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His angry, revolutionary comments are portrayed as though they were made recently or while he was working undercover in 2008. The filmmakers obviously went out of their way not to include a timeline because of their need to blur these lines in an effort to support a false narrative.  What you are not told is that Darby has renounced his radical past.   

In an interview with Indiewire.com, the producers commented on the hardships of making their film and maintaining their dishonest narrative: 

“BY FAR the biggest challenge was not having the cooperation of one of the story’s key characters. In the end that challenge pushed us to be very creative and perhaps even worked to our advantage,” said Galloway. In the same interview Duane de la Vega explains that herself and Galloway “had to come up with creative ways to make the past feel alive in order to work with the part of our story that unfolded in the present. Definitely a creative challenge but one that we think paid off.” 

Here we see the producers admit to carefully leading their audience into falling for a false narrative. Unfortunately for them, good Americans who dwell outside the leftist bubble are increasingly more savvy to the Left’s ongoing strategic manipulations of the truth.  Thanks to alternative and social media, everyday Americans can not only be told the truth about the left’s efforts to re-write history, they can help to spread the truth.  

But, hey, at least Galloway and Duane de la Vega are honest about their “creative challenges.” 

Better This World will broadcast on PBS on September 6. I encourage you to watch this film skeptically in order to learn and understand the tactics the left so often uses to deceive the American people.

Maybe that wasn’t a fun fact after all. 

Kind of an opposite of a fun fact, if you ask me.

But you didn’t.

Anyway, with ACORN gone, it leads me to two thoughts. One: if it were a right-wing entity, and the pranksters were lefties – this would immediately turn into a mega-million dollar movie, directed by Steven Soderbergh, with George Clooney comically hamming it up as the bad guy.

In fact, they should do that, anyway!

Turn ACORN into a drug company, with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles becoming whistleblowers who discover that the lifesaving cancer drug was made from fetuses! No wait. That won’t matter. It’s made from puppies! Right! Puppies!

Matt Damon could play O’Keefe, or possibly even Giles. He’ll take any excuse to show off his marvelous legs.

But you get my point. In the past five years, we’ve had two very funny movies by Sacha Baron Cohen, a performer who used either racist or overly obnoxious characters to create discomfort among clueless Yanks (who, for the most part, reacted politely). But none of his pranks ever exposed corruption or real, deadly hate. I’ve said it before – Cohen, a Jew, would have scored more points if he hit a Willesden mosque, instead of a southern rodeo.

But he’s the star.

Anyway, I look forward to the newest incarnation of ACORN. This stuff just doesn’t goes away, you know – it only finds another shell.

(What, you thought I wouldn’t end with a nut metaphor?)

And if you disagree with me, you’re a homophobe racist who bullies overweight flight attendants.

For one thing, liberals are hypocritical. They have agendas when they’d be better off having principles. They praise whistle-blowers and investigative reporters, but only when Republicans, conservatives and/or the U.S. military suffer the consequences. So it was that they lionized Daniel Ellsberg for turning the Pentagon Papers over to the NY Times and heralded Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward for their Watergate expose, but demanded that James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles be prosecuted for their ACORN videos and wanted the computer hackers who uncovered the East Anglia emails, the ones proving global warming to be a major hoax, to be tarred and feathered.

I even remember when Time magazine put a group of highly publicized corporate whistle-blowers on their cover, hailing their courage and patriotism. Long before Time Magazine decided its cover boy would be Ben Bernanke, I was willing to wager that O’Keefe and Giles wouldn’t be Time’s 2009’s People of the Year.

When George W. Bush convinced a mere 42 countries to join us in the invasion of Iraq, liberals insisted he had gone off half-cocked. However, when Obama couldn’t convince any country to take the Guantanamo prisoners off our hands and could only get 40 nations to commit to joining us in Afghanistan, those on the left insisted he was a master of diplomacy.

The liberals keep telling us that, thanks to Obama’s policy of speaking endlessly and carrying a very small stick, America has gained renewed respect around the world. But, as usual, they don’t specify which countries respect us more these days now that they have good reason to fear us less. We know pretty darn well they’re not referring to Russia, Iran, Somalia, North Korea, Syria or China. They’re not even able to point to such erstwhile allies as Poland, Israel and the Czech Republic, all of whom are staggering around these days with American-made switchblades in their back.

Liberals, as well as a great many conservatives, were upset with George W. Bush for his massive spending. But these days, when Obama is quadrupling the deficit, the Left is cheering him on. Can you imagine what liberals would be saying if a Republican president announced something as nutty as Obama’s promise to spend his way to solvency?

For that matter, what would a typical liberal say if, after he broke the news that they were on the brink of bankruptcy, his wife’s response was to head out the front door, and when he asked her where she was going, she replied, “I’ll be back in a minute, honey, I’m just running out to pick up a few things at Tiffany’s”? Is there a jury in America that would find him guilty if he busted a chair over her head? But when it’s Obama going out the door to drop a few trillion on cap and trade and ObamaCare, the liberals just shake their heads like besotted newlyweds and say, “Isn’t he just cute as a button?”

The worst thing about liberalism isn’t even the lying and the double standards, but the fact that it’s contagious. For example, not too long ago, I heard Bill O’Reilly state that it was good for America that Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. He said with a reasonably straight face that he liked the fact that the world saw us as a peaceful nation. I thought I could avoid such things by avoiding MSNBC. I was wrong. Instead, I thought my head would explode.

Barack Obama got the Prize for the very same reason that Jimmy Carter got it. They got it because they weren’t George W. Bush. The wooly-headed leftists in Norway keep making stupid decisions, handing out these medallions to the likes of Le Duc Tho, Kofi Anan, Desmond Tutu and Yasser Arafat, and clucks like Carter and Obama keep jetting over to Oslo to be clucked over.

If I were President Prelutsky and they tried to demean my reputation that way, I would not only reject the award, I would point out that the U.S. military has done more for the cause of world peace than all the diplomats and pacifists put together. Then I’d have someone teach me a little Norwegian so that I could tell them in their own language where they could put their damn Peace Prize.

Since then, I have been fortunate enough to have free-reign on all things theatre at Big Hollywood (gently guided by the collective wisdom of Andrew Breitbart and John Nolte) and I’ve had a fantastic time writing about the industry, about the non-profit world… even about my favorite shows.  But now, things have changed just a bit.

It started with Patrick Courrielche’s now famous expose’ on the NEA Conference Call.  Just like the Scott Eckern story, what bothered me most at the time was the media and especially the left-leaning theatre writers’ attack on Patrick.   Instead of showing any level of skepticism over the appropriateness of staff members of the NEA and the White House coordinating discussions with artists about how they can help move the President’s agenda by creating works of art in favor of specific issues, Patrick was attacked and libeled for the sin of telling the truth and bringing the subject to light.

Next came the media’s reaction to James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles’ blockbuster series of videos exposing the corruption at ACORN offices from sea to shining sea.  Again, the venom and outrage is directed at the messenger while the message gets rationalized and obfuscated.  This story raised my ire to such a degree that I began posting at Big Government.

Next, I started digging deep into the story of how Kenneth Gladney was beaten by SEIU union reps in St. Louis.  I saw that not only did the mass media ignore the story, but the left-wing blog world actually tried to make Gladney the instigator.  After discovering that an SEIU front group (working with the White House and House Democratic Leadership) had provided written instructions for their union membership on how to disrupt protestors and create conditions that led to the violence, I began to realize that I was in the thick of some very big issues…  a lot bigger than whether I get to work in a theatre.

These three stories that have been highlights of the year at Big Government and Big Hollywood have a common thread:  Courageous citizens willing to tell the truth no matter what the consequences.  Kenneth Gladney is the quintessential “Little Guy”, the “Everyman”, the guy the Democratic Party always says they are looking out for.  Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe are fearless mavericks with a pet peeve for hypocrisy. They are putting into practice exactly what “Real” journalists claim they are doing:  Speaking Truth to Power.   I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Patrick Courrielche and have collaborated with him on a number of stories.  He is sincere, he is compassionate and he is ridiculously intelligent.

I have reached the point where I can no longer hide behind the warm embrace of anonymity while I stand shoulder to shoulder with such brave and noble colleagues.  I no longer fear professional retribution nearly as much I fear the direction of my government and the lack of candid analysis from the professional journalists charged with the responsibility of critically analyzing that government.

So, to that end:  My name is Larry O’Connor.

I worked for five years on Broadway for The Shubert Organization and briefly for Lincoln Center Theatre.  In Los Angeles, I continued my relationship with the Shubert Organization as the General Manager for their Los Angeles theatre.  I oversaw the operations and management of the Shubert Theatre, Los Angeles during the runs of the American Premiere of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Sunset Blvd., Ragtime, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as well as multiple touring productions.

While serving as the General Manager of the Shubert Theatre, I was also the President of a non-profit theatre’s Board of Directors as well as President of the Los Angeles League of Theatres known at the time as Theatre LA.  I also served on the boards of four union benefit plans and I served as a co-creator and producer of Los Angeles’ premiere theatre awards program, The Ovation Awards.

After nearly fifteen years with Shubert, I took the occasion of the birth of my first child to start my own production and management company.  I managed productions in theatres from 99-seats up to 3,000 seats with stars like Sir Ian McKellen, Kelsey Grammar, Ruby Dee, Neil Patrick Harris, Val Kilmer and Adam Lambert, and with creative staff the likes of Charles Nelson Reilly, Stephen Schwartz, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Max Azria and Ossie Davis.  Not once in all of those productions or with all of those people (some of them well known for their extreme political views) did the subject of my politics ever come up, (as far as I know!).

I sat through many one-sided conversations about politics, the economy, America and the war.  It was never necessary for my politics to come out for me to effectively do my job.  It still is not necessary, but, we’ll see if I get the chance to find out.

I am married and I have four children.  I want my wife and children to know that I am not afraid.  That it is not only allowed in our country to raise your voice, it is expected.  It’s part of the deal here.  And when something is wrong, when a friend is being bullied and intimidated, when people in power are corrupt, we have a duty to exercise our God given right of free speech.

I would like to express my extreme and humble gratitude to Andrew Breitbart, John Nolte and Mike Flynn for allowing me to write here under the cloak of anonymity.  I know that when Big Hollywood first launched, Andrew felt a little heat because of it.  But, I think we have all seen over the course of this year that Andrew can handle a little heat, he is the Red Adair of the “Under Media”.  I would also like to thank the small group of friends who have known my secret and remained discreet.  I appreciate your loyalty more than you can know.

This may be the end of my secret, but I see this as the beginning of a new and liberated style of writing.  There are many things in my life and in my past that I kept from these pages for fear that it would expose me.  Look for those stories at Big Hollywood in the coming weeks.  And, at Big Government, look for a continuation of stories like Kenneth Gladney’s assault, and the climate of fear and intimidation created by organizations like HCAN, ACORN, SEIU and the extreme left of the Democratic Party.  Those are the stories that brought me to the realization that there are some bigger things afoot here… bigger things than hiding my face from the world.

I’m Larry O’Connor.  I’m “Stage Right”.  And I’m really happy to be here.

Dick Wolf

The last episode was “Fed.” It’s a story about an ACORN-like community organizing group called “Rights Alliance.” The founder of the Rights Alliance has a conservative infiltrator murdered to “cover up a cover-up.” The cover up is an affair the founder was having with one of its members. The “cover up of the cover-up” was the money being paid by the founder to his mistress’s husband to keep the affair quiet. The right-wing infiltrator was murdered because he had been secretly video taping a sting he was arranging unrelated to the affair–clearly meant to be reminiscent of the O’Keefe/Giles real life ACORN investigation. The founder feared this tape would open the organization up to scrutiny, thus exposing his affair and the subsequent monetary extortion to his girlfriend’s husband. We are not supposed to be shedding too many tears for our murder victim, given he was “tricking a few dumb kids in an ambush video.”

The victim was found with the words “Fed” printed on his chest, apparently to throw our eagle-eyed detective team of Bernard and Lupo off the scent. You see, “right wingers” hate government so much we murder government employees all the time. Of course, Rights Alliance is a non-profit group, not a Government agency, but the writers assume dopey murdering “right wingers” might think Rights Alliance are government agents. This makes scrawling the word “Fed” on the victim’s chest a great ruse. Get it?

But the real action is how “conservatives” are portrayed and characterized. As implied above, the show makes more sense as a parody of the left-wing view of the right than it is effective propaganda for the left. This is now its entertainment value. The first suspect for the infiltrator’s murder is a “Patriot Ranger,” a crazed group that is stated to be linked with “last summer’s Tea Party Movement.” The Patriot Rangers look like casting rejects from the movie “Deliverance.” They carry rifles in Manhattan, are unshaven, uncouth, and it looks like you could smell them from 50 feet. The suspect, who is innocent, is still made to appear repulsive. He calls the detectives “Obamabots,” which they reacted to with shock and anger.

Our erstwhile “O’Keefe” style infiltrator is said to be a “militant conservative.” What makes one a militant conservative? Our murder victim is “militant” because in college he ran a student group supporting George W. Bush’s reelection. His roommate from college tells the detective Lupo the O’Keefe character “hated liberals.”

Of course, Jack McCoy has to get in his two cents. He states how he has always been a supporter of Rights Alliance, which “has worked across party lines.” He proceeds to tell his DAs to “go the extra mile” before “blowing up” up the Rights Alliance group because of its historical good works like “predatory lending reform,” “housing reform,” and “minimum wage reform”–the heart of the left’s financial reform agenda. (The first two were instrumental in helping take down our financial system in 2008.)

In a “town hall” meeting held by McCoy for Patriot Rangers (read: Teabaggers) and Rights Alliance, both groups get unruly, but the worst epithets naturally emanate from the Rangers. One exclaims: “Socialist Scum!” McCoy is genuinely pained when the Rights Alliance group does not believe his plea for patience because he supported their work for years. He made no such assertion to the “Deliverance” styled Patriot Ranger/Tea Party crowd.

This episode also comes on the heels of an “SVU” show earlier in the week where some character refers to various Fox opinion show hosts and Rush Limbaugh as “cancers” in society.

There is a “Last Days of Pompeii” feel to Wolf’s “Law and Order” empire. He has become very wealthy delivering prime time crime drama to television, and the truth is his shows have been high quality. But it’s time to hang it up. These shows have become message delivery machines. When drama is subordinated to politics, it’s no longer popular art, but cheap propaganda.

Dick should get out while it’s only a little too late.

The conservative Internet entrepreneur on bringing down Acorn, Hollywood liberals, and embarrassing the mainstream media.

By JAMES TARANTO

Hollywood

Dressing up as a pimp and prostitute in order to seek Acorn’s help in starting a child sex-slavery ring wasn’t Andrew Breitbart’s idea. But without the Internet entrepreneur’s flair for publicity, the hidden-camera sting might not have produced such impressive results. Within days of his publishing the video exposé, government agencies were cutting ties with the left-wing advocacy and community-organizing group, Congress was voting to end its federal funding, and news organizations were rushing to catch up with a sensational story they had initially resisted or ignored.

James O’Keefe, the 25-year-old aspiring filmmaker who played the pimp in the Acorn meetings, came to Mr. Breitbart in early August with his videos. They showed Mr. O’Keefe and his putative partner in crime, 20-year-old Hannah Giles, asking Acorn counselors for advice on how to evade the authorities while setting up a business offering the sexual services of underage girls smuggled into the U.S. from El Salvador. It was a shocking and outlandish tale, but employees in at least five Acorn offices fell for it and offered to help. (more…)

A telling event occurred on Sept. 15, Day 6 of the drip, drip, drip ACORN video rollout. President Obama met for lunch with former President Bill Clinton at trendy Il Mulino in New York City.

For the second consecutive day, the New York Post featured the ACORN scandal on its cover – complete with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles in their outrageous “pimp and ho” costumes.

Does anyone think the president and the former president were unaware that the city in which they were dining was mesmerized by the ACORN scandal – especially since ACORN had bragged that its employees had kicked Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Giles out of their New York office?

The Sept. 15 edition of the New York Post explored the political angles and directed attention to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s investigation into why an ACORN office in its jurisdiction helped instruct a prospective brothel owner how to hide his prostitution proceeds in a tin in his backyard.

No one in the morally superior media world has asked, why did Mr. Obama have lunch with Mr. Clinton that day? So let me take a guess, and it seems like an obvious answer. Mr. Obama, under siege by a video-a-day expose that was exposing the Democratic Party to an avalanche of consequences (ACORN defunded in the House and Senate, ACORN delinked from the census, etc.), needed advice from the last president to navigate through a major political scandal.

(more…)

Alinsky

I never really had any insight into the pure comic genius of Saul Alinsky until I saw his new age Method followers display their considerable chops on the national stage. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, the Master’s ostentatious and envelope-pushing Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner-like proteges, whose hilarious ACORN skits also showed brilliant flashes of the late great Allen Funt. The Mysterious Mister X, the L.A. street comic who “Alinskyed” Faris Alkhateeb’s boredom-fueled Obama Joker art into an urban poster as devilishly humorous as Hannibal Lecter, also made as big a national splash as a 300-pound chub doing a cannonball into a crowded public kiddie pool.

Now I see the funny side. In fact, I’m getting Alinsky-inspired comic epiphanies of my own now. Who can say that deep down, that pathetic weepy drama queen performance by Nancy Pelosi on national TV pleading for people to “just stop it!” wasn’t the old Alinsky talking? Unfortunately for Madame Speaker, I’ve got the new age mischievous spirit of Saul Alinsky tugging at my muse. Struck me right away: the Pelosi video from 2006 in which Madame Speaker, addressing a moonbat rally, called Lefty anti-war protesters “patriots” and praised disruptions of town halls as a public service.

Eureka! What a side-by-side video comedy skit that would make! First cheering on the mad Lefty crowd like Ernst Roem rallying the Brownshirts, then all mournful like Vivien Leigh at the end of Gone With The Wind. Frankly, Madame Speaker, not only do I not give a damn, I’m going to hoist you on your own goddamn Saul Alinsky petard! Just like the Master would have wanted me to.

Another Alinsky-inspired banana peel laff riot might be editing videos of any Pelosi-like liberal Democrat Congressional reps who tearfully pleaded for support of the massive ObamaCare and Cap-and-Tax bills, then joked about not reading them. Getting the Alinsky hang of it now, people? Saul Alinsky was a comedic poet, and we didn’t even know it. Who’d a-thunk it, except perhaps those who knew him best? You know, I’ll bet if you canvassed his old neighborhoods in Chicago and Carmel, it would be just like the SNL interviews of neighbors who knew Buckwheat’s assassin:

REPORTER: “Did you know Mister Alinsky was a news-making community organizer?”

NEIGHBOR: “Yes. Very nice man.”

REPORTER: “Ever think he’d become the world’s most subversive political comedian?”

NEIGHBOR: “Oh, sure. That’s all he ever talked about.”

Here’s where I need your Alinsky-like help, my fellow mischievous political terrorist comedians, which we Americans all are at heart. Fight The Power! We The People are all in this together. I’m a comedy writer, mostly. My own brand of Alinsky humor is subversion with words. Don’t know the first fucking thing about making videos. That’s the director’s job, at least until I can take that two-day crash course that greatly helped Tarantino, Rodroguez and Chris Nolan, okay?

Doesn’t help me now. So would some helpful street comedians please throw those sharply contrasting Pelosi and other damning LibDem Lefty videos together in Alinsky-like subversively comic fashion? You can even edit in the videos where Madame Speaker first screams to the skies about CIA lies, then fumbles and stumbles on the air for five minutes trying to remember her own. Make a whole skit out of it. Scenes with biased reporters getting “Alinskyed” when they preach about objectivity write themselves. And it will all be classic Saul Alinksy and SNL-style comedy fun, fun, fun!

I am finding more and more that the Alinsky Method of comedy is manic brilliance. As sophisticated and erudite as Tracy and Hepburn, yet as moronically slapstick as the Three Stooges. And that is the sheer Wile E. Coyote genius of the Alinsky Method. Turn the whole show on its head for all sides. It is as insidiously and comically brilliant as the wave of professional hit men sent to the Oktoberfest in Munich to assassinate Inspector Clouseau, then wound up killing each other off to the last man.

For forty years the American Left has been having all the fun adhering to the Alinsky Method. Even drove its most charismatic protege into the White House, and his fellow Alinskyites to near-absolute power in Congress. Sans humor, but what do want from the Left? Yet the blackly comic Alinsky Method of today may yet drive that same humorless old school Alinsky army to Exit Stage Left faster than you can say “ACORN!” And that is the sheer subversive comic ingenuity of the Great Mr. Alinsky.

I know that wherever he is today (and I really hope it’s Heaven, he deserves it), the great Saul Alinsky is smiling down on the absurdity of it all. He must have been rolling on the streets of gold when he saw that first Pimp and Ho video, at least as much as when he saw Eddie Murphy’s White Like Me skit. Life Is Beautiful, and so is Saul Alinsky. May he forever Rest in Peace. At least during the times he isn’t falling to pieces over the ACORN videos, and glowing in the realization that it is all his fault.

Alinsky seminar over. Here’s your reading assignment: the Master’s Playboy interview. Let’s get busy, people! Oh, and if want a tagline for my recommended Pelosi comedy montage, my pick is PELOSI LIES, THE CIA AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH DIES! It’s all in how you pitch it, folks. I would also recommend as a great source of material the Alinksy-like pics and videos of Lefty protests in the past, for both side-by-sides and slogans of our own. Just like the Viet Cong scavenged our unexploded bombs to use against us, but much better. It’s all in fun, and nobody loses an eye.

God Bless You Mr. Alinsky, wherever you are. Wiseass punk! Ledger’s Joker ain’t got nothin’ on you!

On September 10, Andrew Breitbart launched his new site, BigGovernment, with hidden-video camera footage of two young conservative activists who’d gotten Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) employees to advise them on hiding prostitution profits from the IRS. Within hours, Breitbart was doing interviews with reporters who wanted to know how, exactly, the story had come about, and why Big Government was releasing the videos and the identity of the muckrackers — 25-year-old James O’Keefe III and 20-year-old Hannah Giles — so slowly.

“It was strategized,” Breitbart told TWI this week, so “that they would be deprived of the type of information that a defense attorney would try to gather in order to create a defense.”

Who were “these people?” They were not just the leaders or members of ACORN itself. “They” were the Democratic Party, the White House, the progressive Center for American Progress and its president John Podesta. The “Democrat-media complex” is Breitbart’s name for the whole apparatus. “We deprived them of information,” Breitbart explained, “so that they couldn’t come up with a vile, kill-the-messenger attack with the media doing the groundwork for them.”

The success of Breitbart’s strategy was immediate, stunning, and is still ricocheting around the political world. Five days after the story broke, the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 to prevent ACORN from receiving any federal funding. Two days later, the House of Representatives did the same. Meanwhile, Breitbart was talking to more reporters, amused at how the “kill-the-messenger attack” was playing out. When one report from The Washington Post called him for a story about O’Keefe and Giles, Breitbart compared their tape to the photos of Abu Ghraib prison released in April 2004. (more…)

They were not going to report this blockbuster unless they were forced to. And they were. What’s more, it ain’t over yet. Not every hint I dropped in that piece about what was to come has played itself out yet.Stay tuned.

When filmmaker and provocateur James O’Keefe came to my office to show me the video of him and his friend, Hannah Giles, going to the Baltimore offices of ACORN – the nation’s foremost “community organizers” – dressed as a pimp and a prostitute and asking for – and getting – help for various illegal activities, he sought my advice. In the past, Mr. O’Keefe created brilliant social satire that rocked his college campus and even made its way on to the talk-radio and cable-news shows, but the magnitude of his latest adventure had the potential to rock the political establishment.

I was awed by Mr. O’Keefe’s guts and amazed by the footage, but explained that the mainstream media would try to kill this important and illuminating expose about a corrupt and criminal political racket, and that the well-funded political left would go into “war room” mode, with 25-year-old Mr. O’Keefe and 20-year-old cohort Miss Giles in the cross hairs. I felt I had a moral obligation to protect these young muckrakers from the left and from the media, and to devise a strategy that would force the media’s hand.  (more…)