With every video that James O’Keefe releases, he seems to make an even bigger fool of himself. His juvenile antics get more pathetic and he falls farther short of any objective that he claims to be pursuing. Apparently, he has no one close to him who cares about his disintegrating reputation. Or perhaps his closest associates are even more idiotic than he is. Because there is no other explanation for how he could publish his new video humiliation.

The project is another “undercover” operation wherein O’Keefe and his cohorts set out to prove something that doesn’t actually prove anything. His modus operandi consists mainly of alleging that some criminal activity is rampant because he is attempting to commit the very crime he is alleging. Never mind that there is no evidence that anyone else is doing so. Here is how I previously analogized this absurdity when O’Keefe pulled a similar stunt:

This phony exercise by the O’Keefee is something like walking into a convenience store, pulling out a banana and demanding all the cash from the register, then posting the video of the “robbery” online along with a conclusion that holdups at banana-point are a serious national problem and that laws must be enacted to prevent them. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, there are very few banana-related crimes, and the act of pretending to commit one is not an argument for stricter law enforcement to protect innocent citizens from felonious fruit.

In his latest charade, O’keefe sends his minions out to inquire about participating in the “Lifeline” phone program that provides free service to financially disadvantaged people so that they can seek employment and have access to emergency services. It is a program that began in the Reagan administration and was expanded during the Bush years to include cell phones. Nevertheless, O’Keefe, and most of the dishonest cretins in the conservative press, derisively refer to the program as Obamaphones.

O’Keefe’s video on YouTube (unedited version) has a headline that is patently false saying: “Uncovered: ‘Obama Phones’ Sold to Buy Drugs and Louis Vuittons.” Actually, there were no phones sold for drugs or anything else. In fact, not a single person in O’Keefe’s crew was able to acquire a phone at all. The only thing that was uncovered was that O’Keefe is still the pathological liar he has always been. The video begins with a voiceover of O’Keefe asking a series of questions:

“Would these Obamaphone workers tell us to take phones we don’t actually need? Would they tell us these phones are sold to buy drugs? Would they tell us to sell the phones and break the law?”

To make a long, boring story short, the answers are “No,” “No,” and “No.” But that doesn’t stop O’Keefe from falsely accusing Obama of some illicit activity and producing cutesy video of his helpmates thanking the President for phones and designer handbags. To repeat, they didn’t get any of those things or any other things. They left empty handed in every one of their lame attempts to establish some sort of wrongdoing.

The real purpose of this, and just about everything that O’Keefe does, is to disparage people who are already suffering under the burdens of unemployment, low-income, disability, and other financial hardships. He seems to have a perverse dedication to bringing more misery to people who have had more than their share. A recounting of his past escapades reveals a decidedly sadistic streak to his activism. In addition to attacking this program designed to help people get off of welfare by aiding them in their job search, O’Keefe has gone after groups that help low-income citizens in a variety of ways, including…

• Voter registration.
• Home mortgage lending.
• Homeless facilities.
• Gun violence.
• Union representation.
• Immigration status.
• Medicaid services.
• Public broadcasting.

In almost every instance, O’Keefe’s projects attack people and programs aimed at helping the less fortunate. This cannot be a coincidence. He clearly has a deep and abiding disgust for the poor. What can turn someone into such a mechanically compassionless crusader against folks who are already struggling through adversity?

This is a window into the dark soul of James O’Keefe. The only criminal convictions that have ever resulted from his scams were against him and his accomplices. And aside from the poor, O’Keefe seems to have a fetish for targeting women. One of the few projects that wasn’t an overt assault on the poor was a perverse scheme to seduce a CNN reporter that failed when his own colleague couldn’t go through with it and spilled the beans to the reporter. Another involved his illegal entry into the office of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. And then there was the bizarre affair where he was accused by a colleague of harassment that may have included drugging her and kidnapping her.

Throughout his short career O’Keefe has succeeded in developing a persona that is disturbing, immoral, dishonest, and unlawful. And on top of that he has an obvious commitment to tormenting disadvantaged Americans and maligning the government services designed to provide them some limited form of relief. This would be bad enough by itself, but he goes about it with an air of arrogance and privilege that exposes his innate prejudice, which is just further evidence of the depravity of his character. The real story about James O’Keefe is what a sleazy, misogynistic, slimeball he is, and how blatantly his projects reflect that.