Guy Who Tried To Smear Missouri Professors Now Leading Joe The Plumber's Congressional Campaign

For those of you who don't remember, here's a brief review of Breitbart and Loesch's attempts to smear professors at UMSL and UMKC:

• A college senior who had worked with James O'Keefe before, Phil Christofanelli, anonymously downloaded and shared every hour of footage from a class on Labor Studies he was taking through the University of Missouri system, possibly illegally. The footage was presented in a way to claim that UMSL and UMKC professors were "advocating violence."
  
• Christofanelli refuses, to this day, to say who he shared the video with.
• He later claimed that whomever he shared it with then passed it on to another group that edited the video and then posted it on Andrew Breitbart's sites and Dana Loesch's radio program, leading to conservatives calling for the professors to be fired.
• Despite claims from the professors that the videos were taken so badly out-of-context as to present false information, Christofanelli (at that time still anonymous) refused to step forward and say anything about the dishonest information.
• More than a week after the original smear, longer video clips came out that proved, without a doubt, that the original clips were dishonestly edited.
• And then, finally, Christofanelli admitted that he was the person behind leaking the videos that led to Breitbart's dishonest posts, yet claimed that somehow they weren't false because he felt in his gut that the teachers really were secretly advocating for violence.

And now, as revealed by Big Government, it turns out that Christofanelli is working as the Deputy Campaign Manager for Joe the Plumber, running for office in Ohio's 9th District. I guess we can count on that being an amazingly honest contest, huh?

Insurgent Videos Still Whining After Being Busted Lying About Missouri Professors

If you recall, a while ago Andrew Breitbart and Dana Loesch were caught red-handed pushing blatantly dishonest, highly-edited video designed to falsely claim that professors at the University of Missouri St. Louis and Kansas City were advocating violence. They were busted by Media Matters and Crooks and Liars, and I documented how Loesch had led the smear campaign locally by literally chopping words out of the beginning, middle, and end of the professors' sentences to change their meaning.

Like typical right-wing hacks, they won't apologize for their lies even though the full video clearly shows them for what they are. Yet for some strange reason, they refuse to say who actually did the video editing. Why, it's almost as if they know they're guilty.

But, without naming an actual person, they did push off blame about the editing on a group called "Insurgent Videos." And recently, Insurgent Videos along with Breitbart's site have been whining about the fact that various groups noticed connections between this smear job and disgraced smear merchant/clown James O'Keefe. Last week, in a lame attempt to defend Breitbart's sites for inventing a claim that a murder in Savannah had something to do with the Occupy movement, failed Congressional candidate and current editor for Breitbart Joel Pollak wrote the following:

The irony is that Media Matters and Boehlert often make false allegations based on little or no evidence. One small, representative example occurred when controversy erupted over video of radical classes at the University of Missouri in May. A Media Matters blogger speculated, falsely, that conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe “has something to do with this whole smear campaign.” No proof, update or correction was ever posted.

Pollak links to a Big Journalism post falsely claiming that Media Matters said that O'Keefe was "behind" their smear campaign against the University of Missouri system. Similarly, Insurgent Videos has a new, whiny post up, writing the following about Crooks and Liars:

2. C&L blames James O'Keefe
Without any reason to do so other than to assume that if it's 1) video + 2) center-right, it must be James O'Keefe.

Oddly enough, Insurgent Videos does not directly deny that O'Keefe is affiliated with the group.

Notice that in both cases, the groups are attacking a straw man: someone who claims that O'Keefe is "behind" the video. However, in both cases, the blogs were actually just pointing out real connections between people involved in the campaign and O'Keefe, which are relevant whether or not O'Keefe had anything to do with the actual smear campaign.

First, Phil, the student who sent the full videotapes to someone connected with Breitbart and then sat quietly as they lied about his teachers and classmates, was previously involved in an event on the Washington University campus with James O'Keefe. After that event, O'Keefe posted highly edited and dishonest video from a hidden camera that was designed to smear the Washington University administration. Like the UMSL tapes, it failed miserably. And also like the UMSL situation, Phil was initially silent about the smear attempts against his university and later wrote a column explicitly pushing O'Keefe's discredited attacks.

Likewise, as documented at Crooks and Liars, the original "Insurgent Videos" website did list someone named "James O'Keefe" as a contributor. It sure would be a remarkable coincidence if it was a different O'Keefe, and why couldn't Insurgent Videos just say so?

But the real point is, whether or not O'Keefe had anything to do with the execution of this particular smear campaign, his connections with the people involved are relevant. Why? Because he practices a dishonest and discredited brand of journalism, and people who choose to associate with that brand are endorsing the same dishonest tactics. The videos they presented were obviously dishonest, as anyone can see from watching them. So instead of admitting this fact, Breitbart's cronies instead demanded that we just trust the word of Insurgent Visuals and Phil instead of our own lying eyes. But even this lame distraction is flawed, because why would anyone trust people directly associated with James O'Keefe to provide a credible account of a politically-charged controversy?

This whole fiasco was a huge disaster for Breitbart and Loesch, so it's not surprising that they're working overtime to try to rewrite history.

Challenge to Andrew Breitbart: Debate Gladney and UMSL While You're In St. Louis

Andrew Breitbart likes to claim that he's willing to engage "anyone," even people who have no particular claim to fame. He also runs around the internet challenging people to "debates" who have better things to do. I probably have better things to do myself than debate a proven charlatan, but I've been especially offended by a couple of his smear campaigns targeting St. Louis institutions and I think he owes us an explanation.

I challenge Andrew Breitbart, while he's in St. Louis for the Smart Girl Summit, to have a debate on his smear campaigns against UMSL and against SEIU. I predict that he will be too gutless to accept, despite the fact that he has no good excuse.

I am as informed as anyone on the left (with the possible exception of some of the people who were smeared) on the details of these cases. I wrote a comprehensive summary as to why the right-wing story claiming that SEIU beat Kenneth Gladney was highly flawed. Naturally, the right-wing cowards were afraid to address these points, claiming that it was "obvious" that Gladney was beaten. Now, even after a jury found after 40 minutes of deliberation that there was no serious evidence that Gladney was beaten, Breitbart and his minions are hilariously running around claiming that Media Matters fixed the case. Yet they have still refused to debate the actual facts.

This is what Media Matters Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert, the man Breitbart is obsessed with, had to say about my coverage:

An additional media note about the sad Gladney chapter: The two-year tale ended up pitting St. Louis blogger Loesch against an upstart local, a liberal blogger named Adam Shriver who runs a site called St. Louis Activist Hub. By the time the not guilty verdict was read yesterday it had become clear to everyone who followed the story that Shriver had absolutely demolished Loesch and her weak Gladney conspiracies.

Right from the outset, Shriver was among the very first bloggers to dissect the Gladney video and raise all kinds of factualdoubts about the tall tale the Tea Party was telling about the “union thugs.” And it was Shriver who stayed on the case since 2009 and who, I think, was largely responsible for helping to reveal, yet again, the kind of serial fabricator that Dana Loesch is. Andrew Breitbart, too.

So in that sense, the Gladney story helped highlight the stark, well-established contrast between the liberal and conservative blogospheres, and how Loesch and Breitbart effortlessly trafficked in lies, while Shriver stuck to the facts and undertook meticulous reporting.

I also took the local lead on reporting on the attempted smear campaign against the University of Missouri St. Louis. I immediately challenged the initial reports and demanded that Breitbart's gang release the full video clips, which they refused to do. I was, I believe, the first person or one of the first people to publish UMKC professor Judy Ancel's statement debunking the lies from Breitbart's sites, and I thoroughly documented the completely dishonest nonsense from Dana Loesch during the ordeal and their meltdown when longer tapes came out. I interviewed two students from the class who rejected the Breitbart version of events. And I posted exclusive video showing members of the tea party (who later posted their story on Breitbart's site) trying to bait students into attacking them. Finally, I worked hard to make sure that our local media covered the story accurately, and they eventually did. I say all of this not to brag or demand credit, but merely to point out that I clearly would be a good person to debate Breibart on this topic. In fact, I'd wager that I know far, far more than him about both of these cases.

So if Breitbart wants to run around the internet chest-thumping and pretending that he's willing to debate anyone, he'd better step up to the plate here. His smear campaigns in St. Louis could easily have destroyed the lives of many innocent victims. If Breitbart has any courage at all, he should be willing to at least offer a justification for his despicable actions.

Finally, I should point out, if I'm wrong and Breitbart does have an ounce of courage, then the debate should be structured in a way where both sides are able to express their views. A mob scene with frequent interruptions would not be adequate.

Tell Breitbart on Twitter or facebook: have a debate when you're in St. Louis!