James O’Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor today for his guerrilla-reporting stunt last January in the New Orleans offices of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. The charge that he has admitted to, “entering federal property under false pretenses,” is a far cry from the phone-bugging and Watergate Jr. distortions first screamed by the MSM in high-octane hyperventilation mode when the story first broke in January.
MSNBC devoted the top slot in each of its prime time shows to the story and created a special “Watergate Jr.” graphic, and Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann each took their turn at the James O’Keefe piñata, whacking away with full faith in the yummy morsels they expected to come tumbling out.
The big problem was that everything they “reported” to their viewers was based on pure conjecture and wishful thinking. If they had spent ten minutes reading the initial report from the federal investigators they would have seen that there was never an allegation of wire-tapping or bugging. But the facts, readily available to any journalist curious enough to find the truth, didn’t stand in their way of wall-to-wall “Watergate, Jr.” coverage. It was a typically disgraceful performance by the leftist American media.
Even Twitter wasn’t safe from low-level MSNBC personality David Shuster, now suspended, and his taunting Tweets directed at James O’Keefe. He was cheerleading the charge against him and rooting for a long prison sentence.
It’s worth noting today, on the day that O’Keefe pleads to a misdemeanor that carries no jail time, that the real fall-out from the events that day in January has been much more devastating to the left-wing media complex than it has to O’Keefe or the Big Government team.
You see, out of the turmoil of the Landrieu office escapade, a star was born here at Big Journalism. His name is Retracto, the correction Alpaca. Celebrated in song, profiled in the Columbia Journalism Review and vigilant in his attack on the media’s willful lies and its omission of crucial facts, Retracto went on the attack and achieved corrections from print and electronic media of all sizes and mediums.
The Washington Post had to run multiple corrections, as did the Huffington Post, the Village Voice, Salon.com, and numerous other publications. Oh, and David Shuster? He was suspended from tweeting, forced to retract on the air by Andrew Breitbart, and now sits in professional limbo (though his suspension is said to be unrelated to the O’Keefe incident).
Expect much spin today as the left-wing media machine attempt to paint this as a defeat for O’Keefe, Breitbart and the Bigs. But, make no mistake, the bottom line of this story is the media was wrong, they were embarrassed, they provided Big Journalism with its first big victory, and James O’Keefe is free and ready to continue his investigative work in exposing the failures of big government and Great Society programs that are enslaving the poor and downtrodden instead of providing freedom and opportunity to those who need it most.
O’Keefe is back, and he’s stronger than ever. Which is more than we can say for David Shuster.
How are you enjoying it now, David?