CBS, TAPPED and New York Magazine report that ACORN is disbanding as a national umbrella group in favor of dispersed local units that will operate with less central direction. It's the fallout from a choreographed "Vidiot" assault on ACORN and its voter registration efforts that targeted poor and urban neighborhoods.
The breathless reporting in 2009 of improper consulting by ACORN to low-life impersonators had the print and tabloid media tripping over each other to berate the community organization for supposedly encouraging a "pimp and pro" scheme offered by self-described videographer, James O'Keefe, and his sidekick Hannah Giles. O'Keefe emerged in January as 1 of the "Bayou 4" Landrieu office-crashers; he calls himself as an investigative journalist.
Turns out O'Keefe (and his backers) splice the truth, according to a report from former Mass. AG Scott Harshbarger—and backed up by Hannah Giles herself in an admission to a reporter last weekend at CPAC.
While every news outfit reports that the pair entered ACORN offices last year in outlandish pimp - pro outfits and peddled a business plan,
that composite story is a product of creative editing and overdubbing. Like a video version of photoshop. Followed by relentless replay. But instead of this altered reality, O'Keefe actually walked in wearing a blue plain tailored button-down shirt (no oversize fuzzy vest and shades).
The supposed pimp attire was donned in outdoor shots, afterwards or ahead of the encounter, removed from staff and "sting." In other words, the pimp ruse was not for the workers at Acorn, it was only for you, the tv viewer. And O'Keefe was not a lone practitioner; he sold his product to "new media" conservative promoter Andrew Breitbart, and his site BigGovernment. On radio, Breitbart told Hugh Hewitt O'Keefe is on Breitbart's payroll so his site can be a vector for O'Keefe's exploits:
HH: Do you pay him for that?
AB: Yes.
HH: And are you free to tell me how much you pay him?
AB: I’ll...perhaps at another date, but he’s paid a fair salary.
Giles revealed more at the CPAC meeting to Washington Independent reporter David Weigel:
I caught up with Hannah Giles, co-star of the ACORN sting videos, after she accepted one of 10 "Buckley Awards" handed out in the XPAC lounge for young conservative leaders. .... no one attracted as much attention as Giles, who was approached every two or three minutes by photograph-seekers.
Was she getting used to the attention? "Nope! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it."
I asked Giles about a criticism that’s often been leveled against them — that they hyped up the video by wearing outrageous clothes in promotional materials and the videos’ introductions that they didn’t wear in the actual stings.
"We never claimed that he went in with a pimp costume," said Giles. "That was b-roll. It was purely b-roll."
"He was a pimp, I was a prostitute, and we were walking in front of government buildings to show how the government was whoring out the American people."
If you're wondering what b-roll is like I did, you can look it up, it's the spliced-in "scene setting" or cutaway tape. This guy, Christian Hartsock filmmaker and columnist at renewamerica.com takes credit for being the ACORN "B-roll producer" for O'Keefe and Giles.
Partner Giles is also in Breitbart's employ apparently. (She introduced him to a forum Saturday at the CPAC event as "my boss.")
Other mentors and funders of O'Keefe's prior endeavors: Ben Wetmore during their joint tenure at the Leadership Institute run by Morton Blackwell. Wetmore wrote (Lindsay Beyerstein found his cached blog): "'I was nearly fired, as was my boss [former] Cong. Steve Stockman, for buying the initial video equipment that James [O'Keefe] used,' Ben wrote last September. He seemed especially bitter that the LI hired and fired idealistic young conservatives capriciously. Where's a union when you need one, eh?"
Blackwell gives crash courses in "activist" journalism. O'Keefe's "journalist" scruples are more than a little muddy. Instead of playing a genuine tape of the encounter between Giles, O'Keefe, and ACORN workers, the tape is overdubbed, with questions and exchanges recorded over the unfolding conversation. According to the Harshbarger report, when you watch the tape you can't know what was said to and asked of the office staff -- you hear what is dubbed in, and then you get to observe the worker's response.
As for Wetmore, the 4 men accused of entering federal property under false pretenses to interfere with Senator Mary Landrieu's phone system (O'Keefe, Dai, Flanagan, Basel) stayed the night at Wetmore's home before their excursion next day to the Hale Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans.
The more complex ties to conservative activists, and even intelligence interests come from O'Keefe's fellow alleged perpetrators Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan. These two are not your average "don't tax me" conservatives. Robert Flanagan has been earning his master's at Missouri State's Dept. of Defense and Strategic Studies.
From the News-Leader in Central Va.
Flanagan is a graduate student at Missouri State University, but the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies -- where he is enrolled -- moved to Fairfax, Va., in 2005. It appears unlikely Flanagan has strong ties to the Ozarks.
Citing federal student privacy law, the department has refused to talk about Flanagan.
DSS twitter feeds disappeared soon after the arrest in New Orleans.
A classmate David Centofante told the News-Leader Flanagan's thesis topic for graduating was on missile defense.
Career Services at the school posts -->
:: EMPLOYERS & RECRUITERS ::
DSS graduates have joined a wide variety of federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Graduates have also gone to work for various corporations in the defense industry, research and analysis firms in the private sector, educational institutions, non-profit think tanks, and as legislative aides and professional staff on Capitol Hill. Numerous former DSS students have attained senior positions in their respective places of employment.
Throughout the academic year, employer recruitment sessions are held.
The site also has an internship link for a few credits. Presumably, Flanagan wasn't getting credit for his foray to find the phone closet in the Hale Boggs building.
Note that while the ostensible purpose of the request by the pseudo phone repairmen to see the phone closet was to "embarrass" Sen. Landrieu (per O'Keefe's explanation) for her vote on healthcare and inaccessability to constituent phone callers, Landrieu is also a senior member of the Committee on Homeland Security in the Senate, and she has access to sensitive and controversial security intel.
By far the most intriguing background belongs to would-be telco switch operator Stan Dai.
Dai served as associate director of a college recruiting program for spy agencies funded by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Funded by a renewable $250,000 grant starting in 2004, the pilot program at Trinity Washington Univ. in DC was administered in part by Stan Dai. The programs have spread to 22 college campuses, each known as an ‘Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence’ (ICCAE), and pronounced "Icky". David Price has dug into it.
Dai helped assemble the May 2004 spring colloquium, also funded by ODNI, at Trinity headlined as "Intelligence Support for the War on Terrorism" with panelists like Robert McFarlane and officers of the National Counter Terrorism Center, NCTC.
He also co-hosted an Iraqi translator with the US Army's 101st Airborne division, appearing on campus at George Washington University.
There's lots more about him, he's an interesting dude. As for the 4th guy, who also allegedly asked for access to the Federal Building's telephone closet, Joseph Basel, he's harder to pin down and get background on.
All 4 men were welcomed as rock stars at last week's CPAC.
So I'm curious, what does the conservative intell-military folks see as its interest in affecting the balance of power in the Senate in 2010, and neutering a voter registration enterprise like ACORN?
Is this their province?