James O’keefe responds to liberal claims of racism

Simon Owens of Bloggasm posted a story yesterday about Salon’s claims that James O’keef is a racist:

Earlier today, Salon’s Max Blumenthal published a piece making seemingly disturbing accusations against James O’Keefe, the ACORN-punking self-described “investigative journalist” who was arrested recently for alleged phone tampering in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. The story made a number of allegations ranging from his involvement in an event where “O’Keefe was manning the literature table at [a] gathering that brought together anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism,” to supposed instances in which the young conservative expressed dismay at having to share living space with black people in college.

Owens contacted O’Keefe for clarification on details of Salon’s story:

I responded to O’Keefe’s email, saying, “just to clarify: you weren’t at the table?”

He followed up with a link to a Big Government article in which he actually does deny sitting at a table; the piece also says that O’Keefe was at the event to watch a debate between panelists with radically different views, and that he wasn’t there to represent any particular viewpoint.

Larry O’Connor of Big Government published O’Keefe’s response:

Well, here at Big Journalism we think it’s a good idea to actually seek the truth.

So we spoke with James O’Keefe today.  This is what he tells us:

1. He was not “manning a table” at the event
2. He was not involved with the organization or operations of the event.
3. He attended the event with many of his Leadership Institute co-workers since it was right across the street from their building in Arlington, Va., and it was organized by other LI associates.
4. The organizer who is being called a “White Supremacist” is half Jewish and half Korean.
5. One of the panelist was an African-American named Kevin Martin.
6. The event was forced to move to a Georgetown University building in Arlington, not at a cross-burning.

We know all this because we called Mr. O’Keefe and asked him.  Which is more than other media outlets have done.

While I have not been following O’keefe’s career very closely, or this story in particular, there is one thing that strikes me about the constant stream of attacks on O’Keefe.   I find it very ironic that the liberal press constantly attack people like Sarah Palin, Scott Brown, James O’Keefe, etc.  Whether a conservative politician or member of the media, the response is typically nasty, personal attacks.  At the same time, the left constantly refers to the GOP and their Rove-style attacks as if it creates some type of moral equivalence and justification for their nasty attacks.