Punk gone wrong: O'Keefe, Boudreau, CNN, and the state of conservative activism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So James O'Keefe, the idiotic and developmentally stunted right-wing "investigative journalist" behind the whole anti-ACORN scam (you remember, the one with the edited videos pushed by Breitbart), tries to "punk" a CNN correspondent, Abbie Boudreau, by luring her onto a boat and... Well, here's CNN's own account:

A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.

James O'Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.

The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before it was supposed to happen...

Among the props listed were a "condom jar, dildos, posters and paintings of naked women, fuzzy handcuffs" and a blindfold. 

There's a lot more -- read the whole thing. (The plan fell apart when Izza Santa, an O'Keefe accomplice, told Boudreau not to get on the boat. Yes, even one of his accomplices thought the whole thing was stupid.)

Or don't. It's probably not worth it.

All we really learn from this is that some of these young conservative activists, pumped up and encouraged by Breitbart and others on the right (including Fox News), are juvenile morons with nothing better to do than to try to embarrass others, and to do so by manufacturing situations meant to embarrass, or just by making shit up. (I mean, seriously. Trying to "punk" a reporter by secretly filming her surrounded by sex toys?)

As if we didn't know that already.

Just as we already knew that O'Keefe was an idiot. We now just have extra confirmation.

"James O'Keefe, the future of conservative political activism," writes Steve Benen. I'd say the future is fast becoming the present.

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Here, by the way, is Boudreau's account of the failed punking. For more reaction, see Memeorandum.