I don’t think of James O’Keefe as a giant slayer, as the right would depict him. He is the darling of the moment, a fair haired, kind of geeky kid (Ok out of college but still wet behind the ears) who has trained his cameras on ACORN, HUD and NPR and has done serious damage. While the argument can be made that his attack on these organizations have been one sided, and in the case of some articles his journalism has been brought into question, it would be like making the same argument about Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their ilk. The left may hate them, may call them names, but they are grudgingly successful at what they do and frustrate the left because they are still around.

O’Keefe is a punk, no doubt about it. He’s the snarky kid in the back of the room who thinks he’s too cool for school. When he’s been interviewed by friendly outlets, you can sense the same ideology and attitude you get from Sarah Palin. Just with the ACORN exposure, it was ironic that those on the right actually thought what he wore was really pimp clothing. Furthermore, they felt his clothing was so accurate that he could walk into an inner city area and would be accepted as a pimp. It was proven later he donned those clothes later, inserted into the footage to give the illusion this is what he did.

To say O’Keefe is a journalist is a joke. He obviously isn’t but his stunts expose something rather telling about those in authority, not just those on one side of the political spectrum. Think about the ‘joke’ pulled on the Governor of Wisconsin. Someone called his staff, pretending to be one of the Koch brothers, and the Governor spilled his guts exposing his plan. I saw a few interviews with the person responsible for the joke and he came off just like O’Keefe, a somewhat mild mannered person who had no idea is crazy scheme would work and unprepared for the small bit of fame he received. He was willing to exploit it, like O’Keefe, but unlike O’Keefe he wasn’t raised to some epic level because what he did showed the idiocy of the target rather than the smarts of the perpetrator.

Why O’Keefe has been so successful is because when liberals are exposed, honestly they tend to cave in and leave rather than stubbornly staying to fight. When Breitbart showed the out of context videotape of Shirley Sherrod, she was fired within 24 hours without any investigation of its validity. The recent resignation of two officials from NPR happened within a few days of the tape coming out. The Wisconsin Governor is not only staying in office he is doing many of the tactics he described in the phone call and all people can do is wring their hands.

Liberals are their own worse enemies when it comes to scandals. Minor scandals has them caving in like puppies getting their tummies rubbed. Right now, with the events in Wisconsin, the hope is people will actually rise up and fight against the injustice going on, however my suspicion is the growls of the crowd will not cause others to rally to their aid. Sure people will click on their Facebook and Twitter accounts support for them, but that will be the extent of it. The partisans will always have fire in the belly, willing to do what they can, but any excuse not to do anything will be used.

That is how people like O’Keefe can get away with what they do. The targets they fight against are unwilling to defend themselves. O’Keefe will continue to use his manipulative camera to expose weak and easy targets, and as long at people are embarrassed enough to overreact he will be able to provide fodder to reassure the rabble.