Project Veritas and its head James O’Keefe are a sleazy right wing outfit whose mode of operation is to interview people in any organization that does not serve their agenda and then misleadingly edit their footage to make it appear that the organization is deceitful and unlawful. They recently tried to come to the aid of Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused by many women of pursuing them when they were teenagers, and engaging in sexual contact with a girl when she was just 14.
What Veritas did was to get a woman named Jaime T. Phillips to go to the Washington Post with a fake story about Moore impregnating her when she was just 15 and then getting her to have an abortion. The goal was presumably to have the paper print the story and then denounce it as false, thus tainting the testimony of all the Moore accusers even though their stories have been corroborated. But the paper did the usual fact checking and found enough to make them suspicious so reporter Stephanie McCrummen arranged another interview with her and had two other staffers record it from the next table..
You can read the story here. I found this bit to be particularly funny.
Phillips had arrived early and was waiting for McCrummen, her purse resting on the table. When McCrummen put her purse near Phillips’s purse to block a possible camera, Phillips moved hers.
You watch the interview where Philips slowly realizes that her story is falling apart and that she had been found out and bails from the interview.
Samantha Bee did a parody of that interview that is pretty funny.
The satirical publication The Onion also did a parody of it. What is funny about it is that almost everything in the article is true, showing how inept this sting operation was.
I would really enjoy this a lot more if the reporter had parted with “Tell Mr. OKeefe we said ‘hello’”.
Here’s another take: This is an actual example of false sexual accusations against Roy Moore! This sort of thing really happens!!
On a lighter note, I imagine Jaime T. Phillips will now struggle to get a job anywhere, doing anything.
A Google search for her name will bring this up. Anyone on the left will reject her for the obvious reasons, and anyone on the right will see a fundamentally incompetent woman who can’t even lie convincingly to a reporter in a diner. This story and the video in particular will make her future considerably worse. Which is nice.
sonofrojblake,
I think your schadenfreude is stronger than your cynicism.
(Notoriety has been gained)
PS I am uncomfortable with your characterisation as a “fundamentally incompetent woman who can’t even lie convincingly to a reporter in a diner”.
Yeah, I get it. She’s an uncomfortable and shitty liar.
This, to my mind, is entirely preferable to the converse.
More to the point, you are easily read as insinuating she has no areas of competence by virtue of this cringe-worthy episode.
Ah the old straw man argument. I didn’t say I consider her incompetent. I said those who agree with O’Keefe’s mission will see her that way and dismiss her for that reason. You of course understand the difference.
The right does not seem to mind dishonesty and incompetence. Examples abound.
FIFY. This woman appears to be neither of those things. She’s cannon fodder.
… or perhaps canon fodder.
(Sorry, could not resist)
What shocks me about the depth and breadth of right wing dishonesty is this: why would you want to associate with dishonest people when they could turn that dishonesty on you?
Matt G, cost-benefit analysis — morality need not be an issue for that.