What is his end game? What is it for?Īnd what does it mean for the rest of us, as voting rights take center stage in American domestic politics, that O’Keefe is gaining popularity with a large and growing audience that sees his work as one of few sources of information it can trust? What, precisely, is James O’Keefe trying to do? The gawky teenager whose early videos include him pretending to marry his male friend for the lulz (and the benefits) and convincing college students to become pen pals with accused terrorists in Guantanamo Bay has, through relentless effort, transformed himself into the mastermind of a political powerhouse whose videos receive hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube and serious airtime on right-wing news outlets. The business card is fortuitous, as is my tolerated presence, since I hope to get some answers while I’m here. After he left, I inspected the card to discover this was not a PR representative, but chief legal counsel: an oblique warning from a notoriously litigious group I have chosen to completely ignore. He handed me his card and told me to reach out if I wanted a quote. “We welcome all stripes here,” one of them said. Instead, they informed me that they knew who I was and that I would be allowed in anyway. When two enormous men in suits walked purposefully toward me 10 minutes later, I wondered if I could at least get my money back. When the woman at the registration table asked me to stand aside and wait, I began to worry. Personal convictions aside, I suspect I’m already blacklisted. I am probably not going to enlist in the Project Veritas army. The gentleman responsible for half of them, who does not wish to go on record, is enthusiastically telling me that I should consider becoming an undercover agent. My complimentary copy of O’Keefe’s book, American Muckraker, sits next to me on a cocktail table alongside several empty glasses. I’m finding out in real time that that celebration will include a 50-minute musical-theater production dedicated to telling O’Keefe’s story in song, dance, and strobe light. I’m standing in the back of the Glimmer ballroom at the La Fontainebleau hotel in Miami with all the other plebs who could only afford the $125 general admission to what Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe billed as “the party of the century.” We are gathered here today to celebrate the release of his latest book. This is, as promised, an unforgettable performance. Do Something.”įor once, no one can dispute the truth of a Project Veritas claim. Behind them, on an enormous screen, graphics emerge through war-zone CGI smoke: the New York Times logo, followed by a “vs.,” followed by: “Veritas. Their dance partners, dressed in blue windbreakers and FBI caps, run their hands lasciviously up these mainstream-media sirens. Three professional dancers wearing haute-couture costumes that appear to be made of newsprint contort themselves on stage to the all-encompassing roar of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance.
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