The thing about joining up with other people to scam someone is that you need to give them some of the credit for the scam or else they get ticked off and start talking. That is precisely what is happening to James O'Keefe right now. It seems his partners in scamming NPR are upset over O'Keefe snatching the limelight away from them, and are talking to Howard Kurtz about it.
As the world would soon learn, Simon Templar had secretly recorded National Public Radio executives saying disparaging things about conservatives by passing himself off as Ibrahim Kasaam of the Muslim Education Action Center. He had even gotten a phone call with Vivian Schiller, NPR’s chief executive.
James O’Keefe, the man behind the undercover project, wanted to make the hidden-camera video public immediately last February as Congress debatedwhether to kill NPR’s funding. Templar insisted on waiting, and a confrontation ensued.
Templar insisted on waiting because, well, he didn't really have anything, and he was planning to up the ante and rope in other organizations.
Templar grew a beard and dyed his hair dark for the sting. After the lunch, Templar and Adeleye wanted to stick with the plan of approaching other media outlets and academic institutions to expose their purported hypocrisy.
But O'Keefe was in need of something to bolster his incredibly deserved bad reputation, and insisted they release it immediately.
But Templar says O’Keefe told him the video had to be released within three days because he was in touch with sources in Congress and a vote was about to be taken on a budget resolution that could eliminate federal funding of NPR. O’Keefe said he had been assured that "this story would push it over the edge,” according to Templar.
“James was insistent … My position was that trying to beat that deadline was not only futile but irrelevant, even if the desire was to directly prompt the defunding of NPR,” Templar says. “The only result would be an extremely slipshod product.”
So there you have it. O'Keefe was in touch with members of Congress who let him know that they were voting on whether to defund NPR, and he was happy to provide them with ammunition. For O'Keefe it was a win-win proposition, given that NPR executives reacted with extreme cowardice and fired Vivian Schiller and Ron Schiller summarily, despite the fact that they didn't do or say anything particularly wrong.
I've always wondered who the money is behind O'Keefe. He's been well-funded and now has the shield of a tax-exempt organization to receive large, tax-deductible contributions. This paragraph might give a clue:
The next day, according to Templar, O’Keefe and others on the team held a conference call with conservative fundraiser Richard Viguerie, whose firm was retained to send out financial appeals for O’Keefe’s nonprofit group, Project Veritas.
Oh, Richard Viguerie. Ron Paul fanboy and Howard Phillips buddy. Member of the mysterious Council for National Policy (CNP). That Richard Viguerie. He and his buddies made sure James O'Keefe survived to smear another day, courtesy of his buddies in the conservative cabal.
What a motley bunch of people these folks are. James O'Keefe is a perfect standard-bearer.
