When confronted, Phillips tries to explain away inconsistencies, but then clams up and ends the interview. And, in a poetic turn, the Post confronted O’Keefe on the street outside his office to inquire about Phillips. One of O’Keefe’s associates also filmed the video, and they cut their own (selectively edited) video trying to spin their way out of this one.
Many on the right have criticized O’Keefe for the ruse. Here’s a roundup:
Matt Lewis asks: Why do people still give O’Keefe money?
“There’s a misconception about conservative donors. We tend to attribute qualities to them that are not accurate. For example, we assume that ridiculously rich people are generally serious businessmen who are sophisticated and strategic. We believe they attend those fabled Georgetown cocktail parties. In reality, they are much closer to being like the conservative base than the GOP establishment. Generally speaking, they are susceptible to eccentricities and conspiracy theories. They also tend to be suckers for the idea that some fresh-faced young person is going to upend the tables of the money-changers.”
Here’s Noah Rothman, at Commentary:
“For weeks, Republican partisans talking only to one another in cloistered venues have been convincing themselves that the Post’s accusations against [Roy] Moore were not well-supported. They must not be, they reasoned, if only because they didn’t want them to be. Only the assumption that mainstream media outlets like the Post are quick to run with stories that damage Republicans regardless of their veracity could have led O’Keefe to mount this kind of a sloppy operation. He is accused of using a compromised actress to fill a role he cast through an online ad to sell an easily debunked story to a group of professional fact-checkers. Did Veritas honestly believe that the Post abandoned all professionalism and due diligence as long as the allegations on which it were reporting involved sexual abuse and Roy Moore? Had O’Keefe and Co. really bought their own dishonest hype to this debilitating extent?”
At National Review, Jim Geraghty asks: “If You’re Trying to Get a Paper to Print a Lie, Are You Really Serving Truth?”
“James O’Keefe should publicly acknowledge that no matter how much he may dislike the Post, they did what they were supposed to do in this situation. They did not rush Phillips’ unverified claims into print. They sought to verify as much of Phillips’ story as they could, and when they could not, they did not print it. Perhaps all of the Washington Post reporters involved in this story loathe Roy Moore. But they have now proven that they’re not willing to print unverified rumors about him.”
Which, of course, he won’t. In sharing a story about O’Keefe, a user on Twitter responded to me (and Matt Lewis) that despite the obvious, O’Keefe has a pretty good batting average. Here’s what Matt had to say:
In baseball, this makes you a great hitter. In surgery, it’s probably not a great track record (at least, I wouldn’t want that doctor). I think journalism is more like the latter than the former.
That’s exactly on point.
Understanding an obscure tax break. I spent five years of my life working on Capitol Hill for members of the tax writing committees on tax reform that always seemed elusive. Now, finally, we’re within a stone’s throw of passing something. (Whether the Senate will, well…) But over at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, there’s an interesting breakdown of how Ohio’s two senators—Portman, a Republican, and Brown, a Democrat—were both tied to preserving a tax provision regarding private jets.
It’s a red meat campaign issue that those, like Republican hopeful Josh Mandel, can easily use for partisan demagoguery. But, as the P-D explains, it’s not some simple handout to rich folks. It’s actually quite complex.
Victims of tax reform. One thing that has hurt the GOP is that, despite years of pushing rhetoric that tax reform is good for everyone, it, well, isn’t. Tax reform always has victims, and most obviously, as written, the current tax reform plans would be costly to middle class folks in high-tax states. That’s because the state and local tax deduction is on the chopping block.
But when you lower rates, eliminate deductions and credits, and broaden the base, there are obscure victims. Insert the Jesuit Cristo Rey program, as the Washington Examiner‘s Todd Shepherd reports:
“In lieu of tuition, every student works one day a week at an entry-level professional job thereby earning what would otherwise be tuition, to provide a portion of the cost of education,” Elizabeth Goettl, CEO of the Cristo Rey Network, told the Washington Examiner. What also sets this model apart is that the students assign their wages to the school, but the wages are not taxed either when the student earns it, or when it’s passed on from the company to the school. However, the portion of the tax code that allows for these “educational assistance programs” is on the chopping block from the House version of tax reform that’s expected to see a floor vote on Thursday.
Cleveland, where I grew up, was one of the early Cristo Rey cities, and I can tell you that they’re great schools that produce fantastic results. But there are only a few dozen of them. Should tax reform screw over Cristo Rey schools? That’s not what tax reformers intend, but when you have to paint with a broad brush (i.e. is forgiven debt, such as grad student TAs get, “income”?)…
For years, the GOP has pretended that tax reform is akin to JFK’s “a rising tide lifts all boats” but, have also pretended there are no victims. Massive reform always has losers.
Speaking of tax reform, what happened to the party of fiscal discipline? That’s what CBS’s Kathryn Watson asks:
The year was 2010, and the congressman-elect was Mick Mulvaney, then a 43-year-old restaurateur and developer who rode the tea party wave during President Obama’s first term to defeat 14-term incumbent Democrat John Spratt and be the first Republican to represent South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District since 1883. The “GOP Young Gun” ran a campaign platform focused on fiscal discipline — harping on the then-$13 trillion national debt, rampant government spending and growth, and the mandates under the Affordable Care Act that conservatives saw as anything but affordable. Mulvaney wasn’t so different from many of his freshman contemporaries, who sought to scale back a Washington that was, as they saw it, spending out of control, if not spending itself out of existence, and burdening future generations with impossible promises. Fast forward to 2017. The national debt has surpassed $20 trillion. The country’s budget has seen nothing but deficits for the last two decades. Spending has only gone up, even under a GOP-run Congress. And arguably, Republicans — who control the White House, Senate, and House — don’t seem terribly concerned. Mulvaney, now the director of the Office of Management and Budget after six years of establishing a reputation as a fiscal hawk in Congress, now says that “we need new deficits.” The reason he’s saying that is that the tax plan, which is a top priority for the president and Republicans in Congress would likely add about $1.5 trillion to the national debt over a decade. GOP lawmakers aim to pass legislation on taxes before Christmas.
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