Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the decades-old media watchdog group whose condemnation of the NYTimes mis-reporting on the ACORN Pimp Hoax picked up on our detailed exposé here, and ultimately helped force the "paper of record" into a begrudging partial correction, has now picked up on our coverage earlier this week of ABC News' Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos' and his near-verbatim use of the Times discredited reporting in his introduction to an interview with Rightwing hoaxsters James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart on Tuesday...

Via Bloomberg...

But wait! There's more...

As convicted federal criminal and rightwing dirty-trickster James O'Keefe repeated over and again this morning on ABC's Good Morning America, "this isn't about me." (Full video at end of article.)

To that end, neither is The BRAD BLOG's coverage of the scam artists' phony ACORN videos, or his attempted wiretap plot in a U.S. Senator's office, or his latest startling exposé for which he's released video today (also posted at end of article) purporting to show that he was allowed a full hour for his lunch break during one of two training days as a U.S. Census worker in April, and even allowed to leave an hour or two early when that day's training completed ahead of schedule. (Shocking, I know!)

Our coverage isn't about him. Never has been. We expect partisan scam artists like him, and his employer, rightwing con-man Andrew Breitbart, to get away with whatever deceptive, partisan nonsense they can. This has always been about the utter failure of the corporate mainstream media in irresponsibly giving them a platform to publicize their propaganda, without even bothering to check any of the facts for accuracy first.

This morning, George Stephanopoulos did exactly that in the introduction to his "exclusive" interview with O'Keefe and Breitbart (who was on hand to enjoy some of O'Keefe's spotlight as well, for some reason) by repeating an inaccurate report from the New York Times nearly verbatim, despite the "paper of record" having corrected at least part of it over two months ago, and despite their Public Editor (ombudsman) having been broadly ridiculed for an embarrassing attempt to defend it...

Remember the disingenuous snit fits that Rightwing con-man Andrew Breitbart and his Tea Bag Boyz were on about when the original reports broke of "a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans" by Republican dirty trickster James O'Keefe and his band of co-conspirators?

They were outraged --- outraged --- that the "liberal media" had included the word "wiretap" in their reports about the felony arrests of the operatives, since the FBI's arrest affidavit didn't specifically mention an attempt to wiretap or bug the phones in her office. In a desperate attempt to distract from the actual story and find some way to support their friends' charged with serious federal felonies, the Tea Bag Boyz demanded that a number of media outlets issue immediate retractions for the claim, and, of course, the "liberal media" outlets complied --- as instructed --- as usual.

The notion of calling the federal criminals "TeaBuggers" just drove Andy's boys --- particularly the shamelessly pseudonymous wingnut blogger & L.A. County Dep. District Attorney, Patrick "Patterico" Frey --- to embarrassingly self-righteous (and inaccurate) distraction!

The fact was, of course, that, at the time, we had no idea what O'Keefe and friends were actually trying to do in that office, and O'Keefe --- who already had a well-established, if entirely unreported, record of lying to the media and the public about his phony, highly-doctored and illegally-recorded ACORN videos --- then went on to offer a preposterous public statement to explain his New Orleans scheme.

But now that O'Keefe's superstar GOP attorney was successful in pleading his client's felony charges down to a misdemeanor --- to which he and his conspirators pled guilty yesterday before a federal magistrate --- lo and behold, the FBI has released its own account of the arrest and plea deal.

And whaddaya know? According to the FBI, O'Keefe did plan to secretly wiretap the proceedings by secretly recording the conversations of employees in a U.S. Senator's office...

(Note: See bottom of toon for a quick comment of mine in response. - BF)

As Republican dirty trickster, and now convicted federal criminal, James O'Keefe is neither Middle-Eastern nor a member of the Democratic Party, he was allowed to plead guilty to just a misdemeanor today for leading a conspiracy of criminals --- one of whom happened to be the son of the acting U.S. Attorney in Louisiana --- in an attempt to tamper with the telephone system of a sitting U.S. Senator in her federal office in New Orleans, before being sentenced accordingly this morning by a federal magistrate:

Previous coverage by The BRAD BLOG of this hopefully-now-completed story included:

• O'Keefe's employer, Right-wing con-man/grifter and Republican media mogul Andrew Breitbart's accidental admission that he, himself, is a criminal (if his own logic about ACORN is applied to himself);
• O'Keefe's preposterous explanation for his criminal conspiracy;
• O'Keefe & gang lawyering-up with all-star GOP attorneys who would be successful in pleading the original felony charges down to misdemeanors;
• A federal judge describing the crimes as "extremely serious" and "unconscionable," but allowing O'Keefe to avoid trial anyway.

Of course, as a corollary to O'Keefe's arrest in New Orleans in late January, The BRAD BLOG was compelled to run a long series of investigative reports on how the media (perhaps mostly notably, the New York Times) had irresponsibly misreported on the hoax that had made O'Keefe famous in the first place --- his phony ACORN 'pimp' videos.

UPDATE: Matt Osborne of OsbornInk.com reminds us today of a video that he put together in response to the early weeks of our exposé of the O'Keefe/Breitbart ACORN Pimp Hoax...

I just wanted to pull out and highlight here my closing comments in regard to the BP Oil Disaster, from the end of today's Green News Report, because no matter how often I keep repeating a similar refrain, nobody --- particularly the Democrats in Washington --- seems to be hearing it...

UPDATE 5/27/10 A bit of, perhaps, encouraging news. At today's White House presser, Obama noted that the BP underscores the need to pass clean energy legislation. Details in today's Green News Report...

Those who follow me on Twitter may already know that I've been referring there to the New York Times' shameful coverage of the Richard Blumenthal situation as the paper's "ACORN Pimp Hoax REDUX."

Their front page exposé last week suggested that Connecticut's Attorney General --- the leading Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate --- was, perhaps, a serial liar because, the "paper of record" informed readers, he'd exaggerated his service in the military. But then we learned that the Times had failed to share the complete video taped comments from a recent speech. Instead, they chose to quote and share just one selective portion out of context to help make their case.

Not only did the complete video --- which Times Executive Editor Bill Keller now admits the paper had seen prior to publication of their story --- offer additional comments from Blumenthal in the same speech, which may have mitigated the comments the Times selectively shared with readers, the paper also failed to share with readers that the story had been fed to them originally by the campaign team of one Blumenthal's Republican rivals for the U.S. Senate seat.

Now that the NYTimes' Public Editor, Clark Hoyt --- supposedly the paper's "readers' representative" or ombudsman --- has rung in with his "verdict" on the whole mess over the weekend, we can officially announce that the comparison to the Times' shameful response to the ACORN Pimp Hoax scandal, which we spent the better part of three months detailing earlier this year, is complete...

If you're in or near L.A., there will be a FREE screening tomorrow (Saturday, 5/22) at 1pm, of Murder, Spies and Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story at the Unurban Cafe, 3301 Pico Blvd in Santa Monica. I'll be there for a Q&A afterwards, and to sign DVDs, and would love to see ya there!

UPDATE 7:28pm PT: I wish they hadn't called me a "Liberal Blogger," which I find grossly inaccurate. I've corrected them for next time. In any case, had fun on RT. You'll let me know how I did!...

BTW, for those who had been paying attention, I predicted all of this Rand Paul fun earlier in the week, when I wrote in my "Super-ish Tuesday Backgrounder" on Monday:

I just didn't think it was gonna happen on the Wednesday after his Tuesday election!

Last night, the far Righties over at FreeRepublic linked to my story yesterday on ACORN 'Pimp' Hoaxster James O'Keefe being dressed down by a federal judge, before being given a free ride to avoid trial and personal accountability for attempting to tamper with the phones of Louisiana's Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu.

As usual, all of the comments there, in reply, are fun to read --- if you have enough antibodies to ward off the toxins --- but here are just a few of my personal faves ...

Taking a page from the successful hit campaign the Republican right ran against former White House Green Jobs Advisor Van Jones, one of rightwing activist Andrew Breitbart's website's "Andrew Breitbart Presents...Big Journalism," is now attempting to use a McCarthy-like guilt-by-association smear against Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

But my own 2005 interview with their latest target kinda blows the very basis for their entire attempted High-Tech Lynching/Conspiracy Theory....