New Orleans     What’s the old saying?  An enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Something like that, I think.  All of which made reading some parts of a piece on Lauren Windsor’s almost one-woman campaign to pop James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas and zing conservative Republicans a guilty pleasure.

It seems that Windsor has been able to ensnare quite a few big-name Republicans into sharing their true feelings as opposed to their red meat sound bites with her when she catches them for a hot minute with a MAGA hat, an Arkansas-Tennessee accent, a big-eyed smile, and some kind of leading question.  Candidates have spilled the beans to her on hiding their views about making abortion an issue or overturning the election 2020 election for Trump while she catches their act with a hidden camera and uploads the mess to the media.

Using the word “act” in this context is a misnomer. .  The real “act” from these politicians is what they are showing to the public and their constituencies, while they seem more than willing to show their true colors to Windsor even in these happenstances, casual encounters with what they assume is an attractive, younger true believer.  She calls herself an “advocacy journalist,” whatever that might be.  It may be sneaky, but it’s a common opposition tactic to record politicians and use their two faces against their claims, so this seems fair game, even if not really that novel or original.

Her backstory and other avocations were more interesting to me.  She worked for Bob Creamer and Mike Lux, both colleagues, and seasoned DC progressive campaigners.  Bob is a native of Shreveport and a former community organizer.  A million years ago in the 1970s, I would sometimes see him in Little Rock around the holidays, as he drove through on his way to northern Louisiana.  O’Keefe had burned them with his shenanigans, and Windsor took offense having worked closely with them in Democracy Partners.  She started Project Veritas Exposed with the intention of outing various scammers and operatives who were part of O’Keefe’s team.  We would have to call that a public service, especially since O’Keefe tries to plant his spy boys and girls in organizations and campaigns to do their dirty work which he can manipulate, cut, and paste later for his own rightwing agenda.

Let’s be honest, anyone giving O’Keefe a hard time or even a bit of heartburn is a peoples’ hero in my book.  Asked for comment on her work, O’Keefe, probably chafing at her sudden celebrity, accused her of “lackluster ethics.”  Wow, that’s rich!  I could say it’s the pot calling the kettle black, but that would somehow seem to say that O’Keefe would have even the slightest clue about ethics or possess a shred of ethics, which he has proven abundantly over the last more than a decade is categorically false.