In a quiet filing late on a Friday afternoon, federal prosecutors dropped all felony charges against James O’Keefe and several other conservative activists who were charged originally with felonies for their silly attempt to prove that the Louisiana office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was not answering the phone calls of their constituents:
Federal prosecutors filed reduced charges Friday against conservative activist James O’Keefe and three others who were accused of trying to tamper with the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office.
The new charges are contained in a bill of information, which can only be filed with a defendant’s consent and typically signals a plea deal. The new filing charges videographer the four with entering a federal building under false pretenses, a misdemeanor. They had been arrested Jan. 25 on felony charges.
O’Keefe, a videographer famous for wearing a pimp costume in a stunt that embarrassed the ACORN community organizing group, has said the group was trying to investigate complaints that constituents calling Landrieu’s office couldn’t get through to criticize her support of a health care reform bill.
J. Garrison Jordan, a lawyer for another defendant, Robert Flanagan, said his client has “an agreement worked out with the government” but wouldn’t elaborate or confirm that the others also have reached a deal with prosecutors.
“I think it’s a fair resolution to the charges, and I’m happy with the agreement we’ve worked out,” he said.
The establishment media, led by NBC and its daytime host David Shuster, falsely claimed O’Keefe was engaged in a Watergate-style operation after his arrest:
All four men were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.
It sounded like a Watergate-style operation, but federal officials have not yet said why the men wanted to interfere with Landrieu’s phones, whether they were successful, or even if the goal was political espionage.
O’Keefe himself at the time had this to say:
O’Keefe said, “The truth shall set me free,” as he left a suburban jail Tuesday with Basel and suspect Stan Dai, both 24. All declined to comment. “There will be a time for that,” Dai said.
Some particularly idiotic radical leftist commentary after the January 2010 O’Keefe arrest came from Michael Wolff, speaking darkly of “aggressive prosecutors” taking down Glenn Beck for his claimed sponsoring of the allegedly heinous crimes of O’Keefe:
There are the perpetrators, the four young men who attempted to get access to the telephone system of Mary Landrieu, the Democratic senator from Louisiana. Then there is whomever else can be connected to them, by cell phone records, text messages, or email.
These are the little fish. Somewhere, at some remove, with some level of foreknowledge—with enough deniability or not—are the big fish.
The Times’ front page piece yesterday, with the thumbnails of the four perps, says little—save that O’Keefe and company were right-wing hot dogs—but is full of anticipation. The Times knows well enough that a break-in, one full of theatrical verve, is unlikely to have happened in a vacuum. Indeed, the subtext of the Times piece is all about James O’Keefe’s impressive conservative network.
It’s a network full of high-profile mentors. After O’Keefe’s audacious bit of political theater exposing the haplessness or recklessness of some functionaries at the liberal group, Acorn—a popular bête noire among conservatives—he was immediately and enthusiastically taken up by the right-wing media.
The right-wing media is an insular but curiously convivial group. It loves its fellow travelers. It loves other right-leaning attention seekers. This is a club for the ideologically pure who are media savvy. The Times piece sketches out some of these connections, including O’Keefe’s relationship with Andrew Breitbart, who is in turn connected to Matt Drudge.
The Times does not explicitly draw in Glenn Beck, but the Fox host has done as much as anyone to promote O’Keefe as an example of right-wing talent and personality. The day after the bust, Beck was hurriedly trying to disassociate himself.
…
Depending on the aggressiveness of the prosecutors involved, we will find out who O’Keefe and company were speaking to. We will find out who was urging O’Keefe on, who O’Keefe was bragging to, and how far up the media chain this really goes.
Obviously, leftwing hacks like NBC, Schuster, Michael Wolff and the NYT were completely wrong on this story.
All told, the massive establishment media focus on this case, and the ridiculous media claims that O’Keefe should be jailed for a decade and that his actions were comparable to Watergate, have been proven false. It appears that O’Keefe and the others involved will now plead guilty to a misdemeanour charge of entering a federal building under false pretenses. This plea deal is appropriate, as O’Keefe and the others were doing exactly that by pretending to be telephone company workers in furtherance of their silly scheme to prove Landrieu was intentionally ignoring constituent phone calls over Obamacare.
UPDATE: Hotair points out more of the prior false MSNBC reporting on O’Keefe, now fully debunked today:
Commenters are wondering in the Headlines thread when Edward R. Murrow’s rightful heir will apologize for calling this a new Watergate or ace reporter David Shuster will walk back his tweets to O’Keefe right after the story first broke in January that “a) you are not a journalist b) the truth is you intended to tap her phones c) it’s a felony d) you will go to prison.” (0 for 4!) Answer: Shuster already did, sort of, but I wouldn’t look for any more remorse than that from MSNBC. The new storyline, guaranteed, will be that O’Keefe got a break because one of the kids in his crew is the son of the acting U.S. Attorney for Western Louisiana. Never mind that there have already been recusals in the case to avoid any conflict of interest; the “corrupt wingnut” narrative shall not be denied. Long live “Watergate Jr.”!
Health Care Summit Ends with No Bipartisan Deal
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
The Head Table at the Health Care Summit Today, Which Ended With Little Hope of a Bipartisan Deal on Centrist Health Care Reform
Over six hours of debate and discussion between Republicans and Democrats, with Democratic President Barack Obama moderating and commenting frequently, ended just now with little indication that a deal between the GOP and Obama over health care reform is forthcoming. Obama himself stated that he is unsure that “gaps can be bridged.” The parties essentially talked past each other for hours, reciting their respective scripted commentary and talking points regarding health care reform, with the GOP generally favoring a smaller, incremental health care plan while the Democrats favored a large, comprehensive health care plan.
Media reaction has been generally favorable for all involved, with an interesting surge in praise for the Republican performance from mainstream news sources such as CNN and MSNBC. For instance, CNN’s centrist commenter David Gergen, who has advised four Presidents from both parties, stated as follows this afternoon:
CNN’s left-leaning commentator Gloria Borgen also praised the GOP’s performance, stating that “the Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10). Considering the scolding the GOP took after the last live-TV encounter with Obama at the House Republican retreat from the media, such positive reactions are surprising but indicative of a much more polished and substantive performance by the GOP today. Another commentator, centrist reporter A.B. Stoddard from The Hill, also had kind words for the GOP:
Ace rounds up analysis from conservative journalists who argue that the GOP “suckered” Obama into believing they were lifeless dupes at the House Republican Retreat encounter, and that Obama’s skills did not mesh well with the negotiated format today. Obama also appeared to be the lone effective Democratic participant, with other Democrats focusing more on anecdotal stories about individual health care stories instead of doing the hard work of defending and selling the legislative language.
In what may become the most memorable exchange of today’s affair, GOP House Leader John Boehner sparred with President Obama over why the Administration would not accept a bipartisan deal over incremental health care reform legislation on issues such as medical malpractice reform, insurance reforms and the allowance of interstate competition between insurance companies. Obama responded in non-committal fashion as follows:
All day long, the Democrats attempted to downplay the issue of the use of reconciliation, as epitomized by Harry Reid’s obviously untruthful statement that “nobody is talking about reconciliation” in his opening comments. Obama also danced around the issue, asserting that the American people are not that interested in the “procedures inside the Senate”:
Obama’s comments run counter to several polls released in the last few days, including Fox’s finding that 59% reject moving forward with Obama’s Health Plan unless a deal is reached with the GOP and Gallup’s finding that 52% of the American public reject the use of reconciliation by the Senate to pass Obamacare, while only 39% are in favor.
Nancy Pelosi’s final speaking period was marked by a sour note of attacks on John Boehner (about abortion funding in the Senate bill) and Dave Camp (about the over $400 Billion in Medicare cuts), repeating herself several times while claiming both GOP congressmen were essentially liars.
Obama’s closing argument focused initially on advocacy of strong new federal regulation of insurance companies with a sprinkling in of references to anecdotal stories of individual health outcomes. Obama also defended the national exchange idea as “not a government takeover” but failed to mention that all policies offered on the exchange would have to meet stringent federal benefits requirements and report to a new federal bureaucracy.
Another theme Obama returned to several times was his claim that his plan would provide coverage to all Americans along similar lines as Congress receives, which is a dubious claim at best considering the gold-plated nature of Congressional members’ health care coverage On selling insurance across state lines, Obama agreed in principle with GOP ideas there but his “philosophical concern” with that proposal is a “race to the bottom” that Obama claimed would result if interstate insurance sales were allowed. Obama again stressed his “pilot programs” for medical malpractice, however, as former Kansas Trial Lawyer Association Chief and now HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in charge of the effort, it is unlikely to make a serious dent in trial lawyer profits.
Obama continued in his concluding remarks by claiming that he put forward “substantial” policies that were previously put forward by Republicans, used the term “Obamacare” to refer to the comprehensive health care plan and discussed the “fair share” that employers must pay via the new employer taxes in Obamacare, while repeating that his plan is “consistent with a market based approach.” Obama then claimed that his Medicare cuts are a “Republican idea” and stated that “he will end by stating” that “I suspect that if the Democrats and the Administration were willing to start over and then adopt John Boehner’s bill, we’d get a whole bunch of Republican votes. I don’t know how many Democrat votes we’d get….the concern…on the Democratic side…after five decades of dealing with this issue, starting over, they suspect, means not doing much.” Obama then tweaked Republicans to “do a little soul searching” to find the inner strength to support his plans, and then quickly stated that “I dont know frankly if we can close that gap.”
Obama then moved towards the end of his final remarks with more anecdotes about how folks he talks to don’t want him to wait and that they can’t “afford to wait another five decades.” Obama partially recognized the unpopularity of his health plans by stating “I dont need a poll to know that most of Republican voters are opposed to this bill” and regarding the GOP’s demand to start over, “if we saw significant [GOP] movement, then you wouldn’t need to start over because essentially everyone here knows what the issues are.” The President than set a “a month or six weeks” deadline for additional talks with the GOP and implied that without progress by then, the President would proceed to attempt to push the present version of the Obama Health Plan through Congress and after that have the People decide via elections. On the way out the door, Obama told reporters it was a “terrific conversation” today. Politico sums up the summit as follows:
In the post-summit environment, it appears that Obama did not score a huge victory that many claimed he needed to keep the Administration’s plan to pass the Senate bill through the House and then pass another Senate bill via reconciliation to “fix” the problems with the prior Senate bill. Politico and others are reporting that Obama intends to discard any pretense of bipartisanship early next week and work on pushing Obamacare through both houses of Congress. The WSJ and others are reporting that Obama intends to scale back his present $950 Billion Dollar plan to a $250 Billion Dollar plan in the wake of the summit in order to get a win of some kind on health care. Furthermore, Obama appeared to set a new deadline by the end of March for passing a deal with the GOP before passing Obamacare via reconciliation.. The next few days are sure to be exciting as the fate of the Democratic attempt to pass the largest health care bill in American history hang in the balance.
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Borgen, Cnn, Commentator, Comprehensive Health Care, David Gergen, Democratic President, Health Care Bill, Health Care Plan, Health Care Reform, Health Care Summit, Little Hope, Live Tv, Mainstream News Sources, Msnbc, Republicans And Democrats, Retr, S David, Six Hours, Summit Ends
Tags: Barack Obama, Borgen, Cnn, Commentator, Comprehensive Health Care, David Gergen, Democratic President, Health Care Bill, Health Care Plan, Health Care Reform, Health Care Summit, Little Hope, Live Tv, Mainstream News Sources, Msnbc, Republicans And Democrats, Retr, S David, Six Hours, Summit Ends
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