Gerson on O'Keefe

Michael Gerson is probably the most thoughtful conservative writer in America today. In this morning's Washington Post, he looks at the tactics of James O'Keefe, the young man who produces these sting videos aimed to entrap conservative targets such as ACORN and NPR. Gerson exposes the danger of this type of muckracking faux-journalism. With enough editing, you can make anyone look like a monster, but the point of journalism is not to make anyone look like a monster, it is to report the reality of a situation. O'Keefe is not a journalist he is just a politcal hack in the long history of hacks. Had he been a young adult in the early 70s, I am sure he would have been one of those who broke into the Watergate. If he had been around in the 50s, I am sure he would have helped Joe McCarthy smear innocent people. And, of course, because ethics and ideology are never all on one side, one can imagine him air-burshing photos for Joe Stalin's KGB in the 1930s.