So CNN broadcast the documentary that set the stage for the recent James O'Keefe O'Keefe "reporter sex prank."
So is there any more to the story, then we knew from what came out last week?
Why on a boat?
What did they hope to gain?
Do I need to watch this documentary for myself when it's rebroadcast?
Not really. Dunno. Dunno. Not at all.
The background was a young female CNN reporter was doing a story on young conservative activists who use "new media" as part of their activism. There was one woman who went to Planned Parenthood offices pretending to be an underage girl impregnated by an older lover hoping to trap PP workers into not reporting statutory rape. There was a video director who was making a new music video starring James O'Keefe, but he didn't want to be on CNN. The Problem was that the director had invited the reporter to cover it. So O'Keefe requested a meeting with to discuss his concerns. This is when the prank was going to happen. When the reporter arrived, Izzy Santa who worked with O'Keefe in his Project Veritas production company, she blew the whistle and told the reporter what was going to happen. Later CNN got a hold of the "planning document" written by Ben Wetmore which documented a bizarre sexual seduction scene.
We learned that O'Keefe taped his calls with the CNN reporter and sent them to his co-conspirators. CNN got the audio of the call presumably from Santa.
She also verified that the "planning document" was authentic.
It seems that Santa was not supposed to be there the day of the prank. O'Keefe asked Izzy Santa to "Come down Tuesday for the CNN operation-I'll need another person around."
O'Keefe had previously asked Santa to get a large banner printed up that said "The James O'Keefe Pleasure Palace.
On the day O'Keefe was to meet with CNN, Santa sent an email to a financial donor of Project Veritas, trying to stop the interview:
I have a problem on my hands that I think it has the potential for unnecessary backlash.
Today James is meeting with a CNN correspondent today on his boat. .... She doesn't know she is getting on a boat but rather [than] James's office.
James has staged the boat to be a palace of pleasure with all sorts of props, wants to have a bizarre sexual conversation with her. He wants to gag CNN...
The idea is incredibly bad and second CNN could go after James, the reporter is flying in and renting a car to have a talk with James.
What do you think? This is happening at 12:30 EST.
I am driving up to help James but the more I think about it, we should not be doing this.
Santa has hired an attorney and her job was taken away, but she has not been officially fired.
That's about it. No big O'Keefe scoop that wasn't revealed last week. I keep wondering why this had to happen on a boat. Why not just dress up some other space? Were they planning to leave the dock so the reporter was trapped?
If you were wondering, did you need to catch this documentary to see more of the story. The answer is no.
Fun things we did learn.
- Andrew Breitbart was in the documentary and seemed happy to be there.
- O'Keefe was a background dancer in a previous video where he was dressed in a purple lame suit.
- The new music video had O'Keefe is his Acorn pimp costume and had some reference to Mary Landrieu. O'Keefe was shown danced on top of a car that I remember from an old Michael Jackson video.
- The video director's biggest success was a suppossed comedic take on "Damn it feels good to be a Gangsta" called "Victicrat, (Damn it feels good to be a victim." Do you get it? It's Conservative echo chamber humor.
- The reporter/producer doesn't really know how to make compelling TV and didn't really have the goods for her biggest scoop. They used the same picture of O'Keefe like 30 times, sometimes flipping it one way and then the other. They don't have Izzy Santa on camera. They never got on the boat. They have an audio tape of a phone call with O'Keefe, the powerpoint planning document, and some emails. After the reporter is told she was about to be pranked, she recorded herself with a FLIP camera while driving. She recounted what just happened and how Izzy appeared to her. THIS IS VISUALLY TERRIBLE TV. Why she didn't pull over to record this, I don't know. Or why she didn't just watch that video and then record a new version when she was someplace with access to a good camera and a tripod I don't know.
- The boat is named CINCO and appears to be registered in Loch Head, Maryland. Wonder who owns it?