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Update: (Most of) Fox News’ Red Eye Crew Laughs Off James O’Keefe’s ‘CNN Caper’

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by Tommy Christopher | 4:16 pm, September 30th, 2010

» 18 comments

Aside from several segments on her own network, CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau‘s tale of attempted sexual humiliation by conservative activist James O’Keefe has gotten scant coverage on cable news. Popular Fox News late-night yuckfest Red Eye at least tried to cover the story last night, and while there was some mockery of O’Keefe, the overall effect was to deflect and trivialize what O’Keefe is alleged to have done. The segment begins with a misguided comparison to Stephen Colbert‘s congressional testimony, and ends with panelist Ann Coulter lamenting the fact that “narc” Izzy Santa prevented Boudreau from “rolling in the condoms.”

While no one would ever accuse Red Eye of gravitas, there is a way to give O’Keefe’s alleged actions their proper weight, while still being funny. To watch this clip, you would never know that the plan was to strand Abbie Boudreau aboard a sex-prop-filled boat with O’Keefe until she tearfully begged to be let off.

Several prominent conservative media figures have already denounced O’Keefe, including Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell (who called it an “attempted assault”), and leading conservative blogs Redstate and Hot Air. O’Keefe’s high-profile editor, Andrew Breitbart, has yet to weigh in on the controversy, but took steps to distance himself from this incident.

Curiously, Boudreau’s story has gotten little coverage, outside of CNN and a blogosphere that was hungry to gobble O’Keefe up. According to TV Eyes, the only other mention of the story was on MSNBC’s Hardball. A Google News search reveals little coverage by the mainstream press, either. The Washington Post’s Reliable Source blog posted an item, but most of the coverage has been on web outlets. Considering the attention O’Keefe has gotten previously, and the explosive, titillating details of this story, it’s hard to explain why it hasn’t gotten more heat from the mainstream media.

Update: Red Eye Ombudsman (and my friend) Andy Levy points out that I completely missed his commentary on Redeye’s “Halftime Report,” in which he makes many of the points that I made here. He even goes as far as saying that O’Keefe’s plan “might well be criminal.”

While the other Redeye panelists continue to argue the point with Levy, he holds his ground. I deeply regret having omitted Andy’s pitch-perfect commentary, and include it now. (also h/t Johnny Dollar)

Abbie Boudrau, ACORN, Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter, Brent Bozell, CNN, greg gutfeld, James O'Keefe, MRC, Newsbusters, Redeye

Rogue-Comic

Maybe some media outlets learned its a bad thing to give this sleazy prick attention?
The Real Royal King

Andy Breitbart is not amused. He’s tweeting every media personality in America disassociating himself from Mr. O’Keefe.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-M-Chick/507482075 Daniel M. Chick

This piece is very biased and should be in the columnists section rather than being thrown out there as “journalism.”
sticks

Awww… The media is just blowing this off huh ?… You mean like they blew off the black panthers voting case, or like how they blew the American people off, after they made it plain as day they didnt want this bullchit of a heathcare plan, or how business is practically screaming at them right now about not raising taxes, and what do they do ?… The damn fools go home !!!… So, pardon me if I dont happen to give a chit about this guy…
Azarkhan

“Fox News’ Red Eye Crew Laughs Off James O’Keefe’s ‘CNN Caper’”

As well they should. It was ridiculous.
bealzebubba

@The Real Royal King: I loved breitbart’s little tweet to media matters…going the Scientology route for taking on those that might make him look bad.

Red Eye: who actually even sits up and watches that aside from college students looking for something to watch that isn’t a repeat of Robot Chicken or Road House for the nth time?

I still think there’s something else about this…i’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I thinking that he planned this thing knowing that it would garner some sort of reaction from CNN and he was going to shoot footage of that (which we might have seen in a month or so) but it didn’t pan out the way he wanted it too. Just a suspicion.
Big Eddie

T. C. – How about a story about Gibbs being hammered today in the briefing room by a lot of the reporters about no vote on the tax cuts before Congress adjourns for a month ? ( Big Eddie is not proud of that sentence ) .
Big_F-ing_Deal

Tonight they will probably mine some humor from the gay kid who jumped off a bridge because he was outed on video.

So much good material for Fox!
http://twitter.com/SailRabbits Magister

I read all of the O’Keefe posts yesterday, but I didn’t weigh-in. My question is how exactly did he intend the stunt to prank journalism, CNN or the reporter. From the sound of it, the impression is that he was either arrogant enough to think that she would sleep with him and be embarrassed by her poor choice, then he could use the video as some form of blackmail and from the outside, it sounds very similar to the “stunt” the fellow pulled a few years ago, where he recorded himself raping Joe Francis, forced him to call himself bad names, then tried to sell Paris Hilton the tape.

With that said, I could go in the direction of asking why Ann Coulter still has any relevance to modern political speech, but before she goes, perhaps she’d like to comment on the provocative (fictional) blogpost about having sex with her that circulated the internet a few years ago.
libra blue

@Azarkhan , “As well they should. It was ridiculous”.

Just an attempt by CNN to drum up some much needed publicity for themselves and to give their low level help something to do.
jk76

AGAIN? you make it sound like it was a crime, so make the case. Just write the headline ‘indicting all conservatives because a criminal pimp wannabe” WE GET IT…still don’t care. Why not make the case for his associate that recognized the stupidity of it and stepped up? Because that doesn’t help your case? because good things aren’t newsworthy?
http://twitter.com/SailRabbits Magister

Today is apparently my day for postscripts, but…

Tommy – CNN obviously gave the O’Keefe story play because it was a plot against one of their journalists, but I doubt many people in mainstream media consider him more than just a kid with a YouTube channel, who got lucky once. As for the blogosphere, he’s about the same age and has as much experience as most bloggers with a national platform, so they likely see him as one of their own.
dummy123

Red Eye rules!!!!
sarainitaly

Greg made an excellent point with the Boris/Ron Paul tape…

“My question is how exactly did he intend the stunt to prank journalism, CNN or the reporter. From the sound of it, the impression is that he was either arrogant enough to think that she would sleep with him…”

That’w what I didn’t get either… How was this supposed to make her look bad?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Josh-Fields/38410701 Josh Fields

“To watch this clip, you would never know that the plan was to strand Abbie Boudreau aboard a sex-prop-filled boat with O’Keefe until she tearfully begged to be let off.”

Exactly, which is why that near EXACT quote is in the clip: “plan was to strand Abbie Boudreau aboard a sex-prop-filled boat with O’Keefe until she tearfully begged to be let off”

If you actually watched the show they clearly, all (except Anne Coulter) pretty much disowned O’Keefe completely.
betweentwoevils

Ann Coulter claimed that Colbert was a waste of her/taxpayers money.

Mr. Colbert paid his own expenses.
timcajun

Don’t confuse anything Coulter said with facts!
Alric_IV

Daniel M. Chick said:
This piece is very biased and should be in the columnists section rather than being thrown out there as “journalism.”

How is it biased. If this happened, it happened. Everyone seems to be in agreement of the facts. O’Keefe has proven himself to be truly incompetent. He had that one attempt to bug Mary Landreau’s office, except that he got caught. And now here’s this, another one blows up in his face. I know he was the Fox News darling because of his misleading report on ACORN, but he has since then fallen on hard times. I see a couple of more stunts in him and then he’ll become a pimp for real.