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I do enjoy a story where the stingers get stung...

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especially where the would-be stinger is as full of himself in general as is James O'Keefe.

For those who may have forgotten his name, O'Keefe acquired a certain degree of notoriety by stinging ACORN in 2009. He arranged and recorded meetings with ACORN staffers in which he represented himself as a pimp, and asked for their help. The (heavily edited) tapes that he later released did seem to indicate that some staffers were willing to assist him, suggesting he describe his presumed underage brothel as a "group home" etc.

A fair summary of the complicated controversy that resulted is this: in at least one case, possibly in more, the heavy editing of the tapes amounted to defamation. But in some cases, ACORN staffs did make damning statements which are not mitigated by context.

The matter inspired a South Park episode, which is always a good thing to contribute to the world.

Anyway: O'Keefe has rather faded from the spotlight since then. There are so many strutters in the fever swamps it is hard to stand out by strutting there.

He presumably was trying to relive his 15 minutes of fame when he decided to infiltrate the George Soros organization Open Society Foundations. The OSF grants a lot of money to a lot of organizations that O'Keefe dislikes, which use them for a lot of causes he also dislikes.

So O'Keefe apparently decided to pull some version of the ACORN stunt again, and get footage he could edit to discredit OSF staffers and the organization itself.

On March 16 of this year, he placed a call to OSF using the name "Victor Kesh." He described himself to Dana Geraghty, a 28 year old whose work there is in connection with the promotion of democracy in Eurasia. She has programmed her phone so that calls from strangers go directly to voice mail, and that is what happened to O'Keefe.

When she eventually played the tape, it was 7 minutes long. It was clearly divided into two parts, which you might call the "intended call" and the "accidental call." 

 The first part, the intended call, consisted of O'Keefe (he has admitted this was him) in full let's-set-up-a-sting mode: My name is, uh, Victor Kesh. I’m a Hungarian-American who represents a, uh, foundation . . . that would like to get involved with you and aid what you do in fighting for, um, European values.” He spoke about "supporting you guys and coördinating with you on some of your efforts.” He asked her to call back, and then left a 914 number. I refer you to the May 30th issue of The New Yorker for the rest,. It is precious.

 Then the fun part. HE FAILED TO HANG UP. Geraghty heard a click, and then a pause, and then a conversation she presumably wasn't supposed to hear. 

Get a hold of the article for the rest.



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