Straight Flowing on a Boat in the Deep Blue Sea

Remember James O’Keefe III? Sure you do! He’s the guy who (didn’t actually) dress(ed) as a pimp and shot selectively-edited video in order to bring down ACORN, which thanks to a heavy assist from FOX and Andrew Breitbart, and the handwringing and navel-gazing of the “liberal” media, he did. And in the process, he became the poster boy for the new conservative journalist: slipshod, self-promoting, and douchey.

He was later convicted of messing around at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s Louisiana office, which one would think would end his “career.” But he’s still around, still trying to punk the liberals. And his latest plot is a doozy. I mean, it’s super-hilarious. Let me break it down for you: let’s say you’re being interviewed by a female CNN reporter. You know what would be hilarious? Lure her on to a boat where you’ve got a whole bunch of sex toys and condoms and porn laying around, and film her reaction! Because, you know, she’ll probably react negatively to being alone on a boat with you, surrounded by sex toys and porn and condoms and whatnot. And this will prove…something! O’Keefe, boy, you’ve done it again!

I wish I was kidding about this, but I’m not:

A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating “palace of pleasure” and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.

James O’Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.

The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before it was supposed to happen.

[…]

Boudreau flew to Baltimore, Maryland, on August 17, rented a car, and drove to suburban Lusby, where O’Keefe wanted to meet. O’Keefe sent a text message to Boudreau that morning, saying that [O’Keefe assistant Izzy] Santa would meet her when she got there.
When Boudreau arrived at the address, a house located on a tributary of the Patuxent River, Santa approached her with a tape recorder in her hand and said she wanted to talk in the car, Boudreau said.

“I noticed she had a little bit of dirt on her face, her lip was shaking, she seemed really uncomfortable and I asked her if she was OK,” Boudreau said. “The first thing she basically said to me was, ‘I’m not recording you, I’m not recording you. Are you recording me?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not recording you,’ and she showed me her digital recorder and it was not recording.”

Santa told Boudreau that O’Keefe planned to “punk” her by getting on a boat where hidden cameras were set up. Boudreau said she would not get on the boat and asked Santa why O’Keefe wanted her there.

“Izzy told me that James was going to be dressed up and have strawberries and champagne on the boat, and he was going to hit on me the whole time,” Boudreau said.
A short time later, O’Keefe emerged from a boat docked behind the house. In that brief conversation, Boudreau told O’Keefe that he did not have permission to record her, and reminded him that the meeting was solely to discuss the upcoming music video shoot, and he had never mentioned that he wanted to tape their meeting.

Boudreau ended the meeting and left. After the incident, Santa gave CNN a series of e-mails she says shows O’Keefe intended to try to embarrass both the network and Boudreau through an elaborate plan.

“Elaborate” really doesn’t describe the plan.

I would soon learn the details of the plan, in a 13-page document titled, “CNN Caper.”

It explains the type of equipment needed to stage the boat for our meeting. Here is how the document reads:

Equipment needed

a. Video

1. hidden cams on the boat

2. tripod and overt recorder near the bed, an obvious sex tape machine

b. Props

1. condom jar

2. dildos

3. Music

a. Alicia keys

b. 80s romance songs, things that are typically James

c. avoid Marvin Gaye as too cliche

4. lube

5. ceiling mirror

6. posters and paintings of naked women

7. playboys and pornographic magazines

8. candles

9. Viagra and stamina pills

10. fuzzy handcuffs

11. blindfold

James was supposed to tape the following script before the meeting on the boat.

“My name is James, I work in video activism and journalism. I’ve been approached by CNN for an interview where I know what their angle is: they want to portray me and my friends as crazies, as non-journalists, as unprofessional and likely as homophobes, racists or bigots of some sort…”

“Instead, I’ve decided to have a little fun. Instead of giving her a serious interview, I’m going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I’m going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video. This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine, she’ll get seduced on camera and you’ll get to see the awkwardness and the aftermath.”

“Please sit back and enjoy the show.”

It explains very simply what “the joke” is.

“The joke is that the tables have turned on CNN. Using hot blondes to seduce interviewees to get screwed on television, you are faux seducing her in order to screw her on television.”

Now, Boudreau is, like most television anchors — both male and female — more conventionally attractive than most. She’s also a pretty experienced reporter, with a number of awards to her name. It takes someone with a very skewed view of women to assume that a reporter who’s won seven regional Emmys is, first and foremost, a “hot blonde” who’s going to “seduce” them by, you know, interviewing them. It takes someone who views women first and foremost as sex objects to even think that makes a whit of sense.

Even if O’Keefe had succeeded in his brilliant plan, what then? So he proves that when you surround someone with sexually charged items, while alone on a boat, they become uncomfortable? And this is news to who, Sasquatch? If I’m alone on a boat with anyone other than a significant other, surrounded by condoms and dildos and lube and a camera set to record the bed…well, I’m not on that boat any longer than it takes to make a quick exit. I might dive off, if need be. And I’m a guy. Statistically speaking, I’m a lot less likely to be a victim of sexual assault than a woman.

Which, incidentally, is what O’Keefe was planning here. At best, his plan was to set up the boat with all the trappings of an imminent sexual assault, to make Boudreau feel that her safety was being threatened. At best, he intended to use the specter of possible rape to attack and assault Boudreau psychologically, to use her fears for his safety as grist for his mill. At best, his plan was despicable.

That’s the best spin I can put on it. But even then, it doesn’t make sense. There’s no way that this would have worked out in any way that made O’Keefe look like anything other than a massive douchebag. The plan was destined to fail. There was no way he would have been able to use this video that would make it appear the least bit like a negative for Boudreau. And so I’m forced to apply Ockham’s Razor, and look for a simpler, saner explanation, and I think I have one.

I think James O’Keefe was planning to sexually assault Abbie Boudreau.

I don’t know how he intended to do it. Corner her, probably. I’m guessing flunitrazepam may have come into play. My guess — and it’s only a guess — is that O’Keefe intended to film himself raping Bourdreau, and that he intended to distribute it as a tape of a CNN reporter “sleeping with the enemy.” Certainly, he would have selectively edited the tape. And erased the incriminating parts. Hey, it worked with ACORN, didn’t it?

Now, I’ll admit, I don’t have proof that’s what O’Keefe was trying to do. But it makes more sense than his purported plan to tar Boudreau as one of those 97 percent of Americans who’s uncomfortable alone on a ship with a pervert.

Either way, O’Keefe has with this “stunt” proven once and for all that what we suspected is true: he’s a skeevy punk with no respect for women or humanity. And he should be treated with all the respect afforded the creepy guy in the trenchcoat in the dark corner of the campus library. As for the media, which lapped up his lies about ACORN as if they were ambrosia — well, they should reflect on the fact that James O’Keefe was and is the face of conservative “gotcha” journalism. And that he and conservatism deserve each other.