O'Keefe's greatest hits lamponing the left

NY Times:

James E. O’Keefe III, the 25-year-old video provocateur whose hidden camera galvanized Congress this week against the advocacy group Acorn, began his filmmaking career with a more modest target: Lucky Charms.

In 2004, at a buddy’s suggestion, he and a few fellow Rutgers students set out to satirize what they saw as a pious sensitivity to ethnicity on campus. The result is still there to see on YouTube: Mr. O’Keefe protesting to a slightly befuddled university dining official that the leprechaun on the cereal box “appears to be an Irish-American.”

“As you can see, we’re not short and green — we have our differences of height — and we think this is stereotypical of all Irish-Americans,” Mr. O’Keefe deadpans, as the official earnestly scribbles notes.

It’s Candid Camera for the Internet age, a lethally effective political tool that Mr. O’Keefe has helped pioneer between college and graduate-school studies. He has lampooned liberals by inviting them to become pen pals of imprisoned terrorists, and, more darkly, recorded Planned Parenthood staff members agreeing that he can designate his donation exclusively to the abortion of black babies.

But never has his work had anything like the impact of the Acorn exposé, conducted by Mr. O’Keefe and a friend he met through Facebook, 20-year-old Hannah Giles. Their travels in the gaudy guise of pimp and prostitute through various offices of Acorn, the national community organizing group, caught its low-level employees in five cities sounding eager to assist with tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution.

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I am surprised his Planned Parenthood videos have not had more play. He has a knack for framing issues and is adept at using the internet tools available. While it might be difficult to harness those talents in a large organization, as a freelancer he is deadly.