New Orleans Thanks goodness I got home in time for this.  James O’Keefe (the 3^rd!) was in New Orleans last week to speak to a far right group of business types pulled together by the Pelican Institute.  We had seen the notices.  I was going to be in Honduras, but tried to talk people into going to hear what the twit had to say and reverse the tables.  O’Keefe is having his moment in the sun and shadows based having posed as pimp with a confederate tarted out as a prostitute and stinging and embarrassing five or so ACORN and ACORN Housing operations around the country during the summer all of which led to a firestorm of attack on the organization and withdrawal of significant funding sources.

Now in a twist, and you just can’t make this stuff up, this yahoo and a couple of other dim lights from the right, were all caught redhanded by the FBI on Monday morning trying to scam their way into Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in the city.  Seems they were tricked out with fluorescent vests and tried to talk their way into the phone system.  O’Keefe in  clownish fashion seems to have been easily observed filming his buddies on this Watergate bumblers expedition with his cell phone, although I’m betting it was a flip camera, but we’ll soon see.  Once Landreiu’s office staff showed them the main GAO phone system, it seems like the secretary called the feds on their stupid butts.

Next stop St. Bernard Parish Prison, which is disappointing to hear, since the brothers at the Orleans Parish Prison might have showed them a little bit more of New Orleans life than they really wanted to explore.  I hope that I don’t have to read that they were shepherded over to St. Bernard because they were mainly white dudes and the FBI feared that hanging with real pimps might not have been pretty, especially since there were no doubt huge numbers of ACORN friendly folks in the OPP.

One of these boneheads was the son of William Flanagan who is the interim US Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, which includes Shreveport and Lake Charles.  Many will be watching whether or not they get any breaks from that.  For her part Senator Landrieu said in essence that she could hardly wait to find out what these boys were up to.  Their own lawyers described the whole affair as, well, stupid.

Why Landrieu for goodness sake?  What papers or blogs are they reading that argues that Mary is some kinda flaming, commie, liberal the likes of which they are supposed to attack and expose.  I can’t even imagine what they thought they might have heard by tapping into her district offices phones.  For the most part people complain that you can’t even get through on the lines or get a return call from Mary’s local office, so this would have been a hoot, if they had gotten farther.

O’Keefe has gone from darling to dunderhead of the right, though most of his promoters were keeping buttoned up.   Keith Obermann seemed to be speculating on MSBN last night about whether or not O’Keefe’s funders might be targeted now to determine who was financing and pushing this crazy stuff, which may be why biggovernment.com and other O’Keefe backers were “mums the word” and waiting to see how much of the jig is up.

O’Keefe’s credibility is obviously gone, but seriously, did he really have any in the first place?