O'Keefe A Racist, Hypocrite? Big Journalism's Larry O'Connor Seems To Forget The Big Government Jim Hoft "Fistgate" Attacks

Big Journalism had decided to defend activist James O'Keefe yet again, but by doing so, they point out their own hypocrisy.

In their article, in which they cite another article from One People's Project, in which the author, Daryle Jenkins, points out that O'Keefe attended a white racist forum, but the right believes that this claim is false and part of another wave of liberal media spin against their golden boy.

(In 2006) ..there was this white supremacist forum that we had called attention to and eventually attended that featured American Renaissance’s Jared Taylor and National Review’s homophobe extraordinaire John Derbyshire. It was originally supposed to be held at the building of the conservative activist organization Leadership Institute until it was forced to move to another location…..

There was also a photographer there, and lo and behold this picture has surfaced of a now familiar face attending the forum - James O’Keefe.

O’Keefe was manning a table at a forum of suit-and-tie Nazis.

A DC area photographer snapped a photo of O’Keefe as he maintained a literature table near the panelists.

The article is also accompanied by a photograph of O'Keefe that was taken at the forum. Pretty cut and dry, but the right found some way to spin this one. First, they attack other news outlets and opinion sites that had picked up on this story, and then they attack the photo of O'Keefe and the way he is depicted in the various articles, with Big Journalism author Larry O'Connor stating that the liberal media have "gone from O’Keefe attending the event to O’Keefe manning a literature table to O’Keefe organizing the entire event!"

In O'Keefe's defense, O'Connor talked to O'Keefe and O'Keefe set the record straight. He then asked Jenkins if he had an un-cropped picture of O'Keefe manning tables, and when Jenkins stated that he had eye witnesses, O'Connor attacked the validity of the accounts of witnesses after four years. O'Connor states that the one witness that was named, David Weigel, has gone on record stating that he did not witness O'Keefe "manning the table." Weigel wrote an article for The Washington Independent, stating that he was cited as a source, and that while he can confirm that O'Keefe did indeed attend the event, he can neither confirm, nor deny, that O'Keefe manned the tables, acting only on the word of the photographer, and as he points out, he remembers grabbing the racist American Renaissance magazine, and as you can tell by the photograph of O'Keefe's head, there is a man walking behind him and O'Keefe's position places him lower, as if he were sitting.

Here is O'Connor's conclusion:

James O’Keefe attended a forum years ago that dealt with race and politics. The forum was located at a Georgetown University building (that’s right, a 21-year-old man attended an event on a college campus). The forum had as one of its three speakers a controversial figure, Jared Taylor, with a track record of making racist statements. He was being debated by two other people including Mr. Martin (taking issue with the racist figure). Mr. Taylor has also appeared with Phil Donohue, Queen Latifa and Paula Zahn on their TV shows to debate race. Are the audience members of the Donohue show racist for sitting and watching that debate?

So now I am brought to what is so hypocritical about this, and if you haven't figured out from the title of this article, I am referring to the numerous "Fistgate" articles penned by Jim Hoft, attacking Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education, Kevin Jennings. As found on Big Government's site, there was Fistgate I, "Jennings Conference Promoted Dangerous 'Fisting'"; Fistgate II, "Jennings Conference Distributes 'Fisting' Kits"; Fistgate III, "'Little Black Book: Queer in the 21st Century'"; Fistgate IV, "Gay Bar Guides for Teens"; Fistgate V, "Teacher Laments, 'Fisting...often Gets a Bad Rap'"; and Fistgate VI, "'No Dookie On Your Noodle".

If you look at the Wikipedia entry for "Fistgate," as well as the various homophobic Hoft posts, in which Hoft attacks Jennings for pushing sexually explicit and morally bankrupt literature to children and teenagers at a conference, you can see the hypocrisy. O'Connor insists that O'Keefe may have attended the event, but his presence has been taken out of context, which it may have, but the right has no proof other then O'Keefe's word, which I think is pretty shaky right now. O'Connor asserts that this is only a case of "a 21-year-old man attended an event on a college campus," yet fellow Big author Hoft's attacks seem justified to the right, even though everything about the "Fistgate" articles was taken out of context, especially when they were written years after the event (longer then O'Keefe attending his forum and the Jenkins' article).

Do I believe that O'Keefe was sitting "manning the table?" Yes. All past knowledge of O'Keefe's actions point to this, from actions against Planned Parenthood to ACORN and Mary Landreiu's office, and all the lies in between. Remember, O'Keefe is a conservative activist who is trying to push his twisted agenda that is not representative of true conservatives. In the age of the internet, O'Keefe is now trying to backtrack on his past that has come up to bite him in the rear, and it seems he has the aid of the conservative media to play revisionist.