Mother Jones' David Corn has an unlikely defender in the case of the secret Mitch McConnell recordings: Conservative gadfly James O'Keefe.
In a blog post for the Daily Beast called "James O’Keefe in Defense of Taping Mitch McConnell, and Everyone Else," O'Keefe writes that he "shares David Corn’s vision of bringing veritas to the vulgate, or truth to the people," and says that "I’ve become all too familiar with civil and criminal statutes that are bad for democracy because they insolate those vested in a public trust from democratic accountability."
From the post:
While the two young people who allegedly recorded McConnell, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, may have overstepped the line this time, conservatives need to understand that the potential punishment they face is incommensurate with the crime under the present law. Raw and unfiltered recordings are the best tools we have to expose things as they really are. Last year John Fund referred to our video showing Eric Holder’s ballot to vote offered to a stranger as “cinema verité.” Now David Corn said of his McConnell tape, “No one needs to listen to me or any commentator to know what it means ... It’s all there ... It’s journalism verité.” As someone who shares David Corn’s vision of bringing veritas to the vulgate, or truth to the people, I wholeheartedly agree.
The McConnell recordings, obtained by Mother Jones and published last week, were reportedly the handiwork of liberal Super PAC Progress Kentucky, according to a Kentucky county Democratic chair who said two members of the group bragged to him about making the recordings.
O'Keefe was recently ordered to apologize and pay $100,000 to a former ACORN employee who was fired after O'Keefe secretly filmed him in one of his secret sting videos.
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