A rather strange exchange in today’s Kaplan reporter Q&A:
Blacksburg, Va.: Does the Right-Wing have so shame?
–Was Census Worker Bill Sparkman A Child Predator? Was Census Worker Bill Sparkman A Child Predator?
Ed O’Keefe: Note what this author says at the outset of his piece:
“I have no idea what happened, but from the reporting I’ve seen, neither does anyone else.”
This is why — in regards to the previous question — we cannot say he was targeted because of his federal employment or for any other reason.
No condemnation of the Riehl rumor, just a suggestion that everyone is in the same boat as Riehl? I guess this must be part of the new teabagger-friendly guidelines the ombudsman suggested.
Steve
Somehow I just can’t recall the media exercising this level of caution in regard to past incidents. Sure, maybe the guy was killed for some completely unrelated reason, but if a police informant was found dead with “NARC” written on his chest, would the media be all like “it would be irresponsible to draw any conclusions at this time”? Heck, I’m impressed they were willing to jump to the conclusion that Dr. Tiller was murdered for running an abortion clinic.
DougJ
I’m for exercising caution here until they know more.
Warren Terra
Is Ed O’Keefe refusing to condemn Riehl because Riehl has incriminating pictures of the entire WaPo editorial staff with farm animals? Were satanic rituals and human sacrifices involved? Space aliens?
Well, hold on a moment, let me invoke the magic mantra: “I have no idea what happened, but from the reporting I’ve seen, neither does anyone else”.
There we go – the accuracy of those allegations is now a distinct possibility. And it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
CalD
Also, the question of whether or not he might have been a space alien has yet to be fully addressed.
Cat Lady
Yes, exactly what I thought too. Irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not too. The Kaplan Daily serfs have all gotten the memo from their teabagger friendly overlords, and it said We are all Puke Funnels Now.
gbear
I guess this must be part of the reason that the WaPo should never expect to see a dime of my money. Ever.
Shorter answer to Blacksburg, Va.: Yes, the right-wing has no shame.
ppcli
Well, someone has to say it, so it might as well be me:
I have no idea what happens in Ed O’Keefe’s life, but from the reporting I’ve seen, neither does anyone else. So he may well be a child predator.
John Cole
I’m not saying Ed O’Keefe blows goats, but he might. Just throwing that out there in the absence of any information to confirm otherwise.
Comrade javafascist
And we’re its bitch
MattF
@ppcli
…and, it’s well known that wingers habitually accuse others of the various sins that they commit (or would like to). And if you want proof, that’s your problem, not mine.
Kryptik
@DougJ:
So why can’t morons like O’Keefe and Riehl exercise similar caution in jumping to wild speculations?
I mean…if a dog was dead on a road, with tire skids nearby, it might be reasonable to speculate that he was run over, but remain cautious that it may not be that obvious.
It’s not reasonable to instead speculate that giant sandworms burst up from the street, grabbed the dog and bludgeoned him to death with a ballpeen hammer before disappearing without a trace. Hey, it could be possible after all, and it’d be irresponsible not to speculate about all possibilities!
So…just wondering. Where the hell are the journalists? Why have we been saddled with hacktackular morons who mistake gossip and wild fantasies with responsible reporting?
General Winfield Stuck
Dan Reihl is a sick motherfucker and the WAPO is worse. I don’t know how you read so much of their toxic swill Dougj.
And O’keefe is the little fuckwit who painted a van to say it was from “Publishing Clearing House” sweepstakes, drove it into a black neighborhood making people think they had won, and then giving each a bill for 28,000 dollars as their share of getting a stimulus handout.
What kind of asshat does something like that, and then there’s the ACORN garbage.
simonee
Oh, so NOW they’re all about caution and not jumping to any conclusions. How responsible of them!
Kryptik
@John Cole:
He has been suspiciously silent about the allegations, you know. This clearly warrants further investigation and speculation. There may be connections to a goat conspiracy here!
4tehlulz
Can you imagine what it would be like if, say, the Oklahoma City Bombing was reported like this?
>>Blacksburg, Va.: Does the Right-Wing have so shame?
-Was the Murrah Daycare Center a pedophile haven? Were the Workers in Oklahoma City Child Predators?
Ed O’Keefe: Note what this author says at the outset of his piece:
“I have no idea what happened, but from the reporting I’ve seen, neither does anyone else.”
This is why—in regards to the previous question—we cannot say the Murrah Federal Building because its a federal facility or for any other reason.
Martin
I’m pretty sure Ed O’Keefe != James O’Keefe.
Kryptik
@General Winfield Stuck:
Wrong O’Keefe. This one happens to be one of those ‘responsible’ reporters who the WaPo is trusting to help take the outrage d’jour from the Becksian Brood seriously. Since, you know, those DFH just keep locking out sane right-wing voices.
DougJ
And O’keefe is the little fuckwit who painted a van to say it was from “Publishing Clearing House” sweepstakes, drove it into a black neighborhood making people think they had won, and then giving each a bill for 28,000 dollars as their share of getting a stimulus handout.
Different O’Keefe, you anti-Celtic maniac.
Martin
@General Winfield Stuck:
I’m pretty sure Ed O’Keefe != James O’Keefe.
But since I have no information to confirm it, feel free to continue to speculate since you very well may be correct.
Comrade Dread
Do the Washington Post editors secretly perform lewd sexual acts with animals and breakfast foods in their garages at night?
We don’t know for sure, but it would be irresponsible not to ask that question.
Pasquinade
Dan Riehl attacks Glenn Beck.
I Come Not To Praise Glenn Beck, But To Bury Him
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/riehl-comes-not-to-praise-glenn-beck-but-to-bury-him/
Warren Terra
It is crap like this that really makes me feel for Ezra Klein. I love his work, and I’m sure that the Washington Postcan offer him a lot more money and better benefits than The American Prospect ever could – plus, by leaving TAP he frees up some of their limited budget for those coming up; I’m really impressed with TAP‘s fellowship program, which gave (poorly) paid blogging/writing gigs to Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and Adam Serwer, among others. And Ezra still seems to be writing about the issues he wants to, now with much better access to get interviews with people on the Hill than he had before. But if he weren’t paid by the Washington Post, acting as a lonely light in the wilderness of that newspaper’s awfulness, it would be a lot easier to completely ignore and deride them as they have repeatedly tried to show they deserve, and easier to celebrate their trip down the plughole.
Brick Oven Bill
This is crap. Dan Riehl is some obscure guy with a blog who wrote a piece in poor taste. Attempting to paint him as the Teabag movement is no different that this blog repeatedly showing images of crazy old people at these events, while avoiding imagery of strong, sane members.
As I have repeatedly demonstrated, the latter is false, as is the former.
The Teabaggers are a group who is very concerned about the Founding Documents, and the Principles and Values that formed them, and the greatness of the Country. These are more powerful than cheap attempts at branding.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
No, I’m just an run of the mill idjit/maniac, and that’s twice I’ve made that sort of error in 24 hours, so I ought to be banned, but will just stick to lame jokestering, unless I fuck that up too. Smacks forehead.
IndieTarheel
Shorter O’Keefe: “I have no clue, you don’t either, let’s make some shit up.”
Jon H
@Brick Oven Bill: “The Teabaggers are a group who is very concerned about the Founding Documents”
Oh bullshit. If they were concerned about the Founding Documents, they wouldn’t be saying things like “I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK”, because they’d know damned well that the Founding Documents set out a system by which power transfers periodically, and the way to “get their country back” is not to whine about “watering the tree of liberty” but by building a sane, competent party that can win the following elections.
Also? They didn’t give a shit about Bush wiping his ass on the Founding Documents. You think they give a crap about whether or not Jose Padilla was treated Constitutionally?
Jon H
Dan Riehl probably thinks the contractors killed in Falluja were pedophiles.
Erik Vanderhoff
Given Dan Riehl’s fascination with homosexual pedophiles, I suggest that he may in fact be a homosexual pedophile. Irresponsible to speculate, you say? I say it would be irresponsible not to! Does Riehl have one or more sons? Does he have access to boys? Does he have access to goats? Can he prove that he has not had sexual congress with any of them?! I demand an investigation by the Washington Post!
flounder
Reading Ed O’Keefe’s chat today, I get the impression that he isn’t the thickest study guide in the Kaplan collection.
He did however, answer my question about whether the VP is the 60th or 61st vote in passing bills through the Senate. Thanks Ed!
Parole Officer Burke
@Brick Oven Bill: It’s getting pretty embarrassing, Bill.
You’ve reached the point where you’re more or less linking to your Facebook page, saying “look how cool my friends are!”
Also: Your “friends” are old, creepy looking reactionary gun nuts.
dr. luba
@John Cole: Is Ed O’Keefe from Jersey?
From Philly.com:
A Superior Court judge dismissed animal-cruelty charges against a Moorestown police officer accused of sticking his penis into the mouths of five calves in rural Southampton in 2006, claiming a grand jury couldn’t infer whether the cows had been “tormented” or “puzzled” by the situation or even irritated that they’d been duped out of a meal.
“If the cow had the cognitive ability to form thought and speak, would it say, ‘Where’s the milk? I’m not getting any milk,’ ” Judge James J. Morley asked.
Children, Morley said, seemed “comforted” when given pacifiers, but there’s no way to know what bovine minds thought of Robert Melia Jr. substituting his member for a cow’s teat.
“They [children] enjoy the act of suckling,” the judge said. “Cows may be of a different disposition.”
Burlington County Assistant County Prosecutor Kevin Morgan was certainly irritated by the ruling, claiming the grand jury didn’t see the videos of the alleged incident, including one in which one hungry calf allegedly head-butts Melia in the stomach.
“I think any reasonable juror could infer that a man’s penis in the mouth of a calf is torment,” Morgan argued. “It’s a crime against nature.”
Although a bill was introduced in 2005 to ban bestiality, New Jersey still has no explicit ban on the sexual penetration of animals, which is why the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office charged Melia with animal cruelty.
Tom Betz
I think I have located Dan Riehl’s role model when it comes to news reporting.
Midnight Marauder
@Brick Oven Bill:
You’re running out of steam, BOB.
I think it might be best if you retire the nom de plume, Brick Oven Bill, take a break for a few months, and come back with a new name and a new “somewhat amusing only until it becomes maddeningly infuriating in its inanity and blatant disregard for logic and reason” shtick.
Think about it.
PeakVT
@flounder: Somebody followed up, too. O’Keefe’s answer to that one is quintessential Villager.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
I guess the fact that the word “Fed” was scrawled on Sparkman’s body is totally irrelevant?
Keith G
I am sensing a convergence of wingnuttery and simple math. Take one hung up child abusing federal worker add one Polish-born, French citizen, child raping, Hollywood directing fugitive who must be a liberal Dem of sorts, and you can get (with Beck-like arithmetic) a scandal to hang upon President Obama and the Dems.
I am not sure how they will do it or who it will be, but this will be worked out.
Chad N Freude
@DougJ: You’ve ruined my day. I went to O’Keefe’s Q&A and read the whole thing — OK, I’m a masochist. Did he go to journalism school? Does he know what journalism is? Does he have any idea what a newspaper is supposed to do? As I read through his A’s, I kept thinking of the films of the 40’s that depicted reporters looking for actual facts to report, which now seem to be documentation of a vanished world. 21st century journalism is the new Dead Parrot.
Jerry 101
have they no shame? jeezus f-ing christ!
The Village needs to be burned down (figuratively, not literally).
It’s time to re-assign these fools en masse. I think that working the paparazzi beat in Hollywood is fitting. Or maybe someone needs to set up a bureau on Baffin Island for the entire Washington Press Corps.
Jason B at Work
@Brick Oven Bill: “As I have repeatedly demonstrated”
Congrats to you, BOB, for avoiding your usual writing in third person koanstyle. It was almost like there’s a person in there somewhere. Not a person I agree with in any form, but nonetheless a person.
And congrats also, as you’ve just been DAMNED WITH FAINT PRAISE.
Stefan
Personally, I have to wonder if Ed O’Keefe is a child predator. Not that I’m suggesting he is! Of course not! I’m just suggesting that it’s not established yet one way or the other, and from the non-existent reporting on this I have to conclude no one else can say definitively.
Again, to be clear, I’m not saying Ed O’Keefe is a child predator. I’m just asking is Ed O’Keefe a child predator? The answer may well be no…..
Shell
Now for a station break.
Just read what the title will be for Sarah Palin’s upcoming book. Wait for it.
“Going Rogue”
Oh, dear. More masterful use of the English tongue by Palin.
Mine thesaurus enlarges on the word, ‘rogue’ as “villain, miscreant, reprobate, good-for-nothing, wretch, rat, louse, crook, blackguard.
Chad N Freude
@“Fair and Balanced” Dave: “Fed”is ambiguous. It could mean that he was given food prior to his accident/suicide. This is why we cannot say he was targeted because of his federal employment.
Jerry 101
And for the record, I’m still waiting for Dan Riehl to respond to the accusations that he is a necrophile.
Has anyone asked Ed O’Keefe when the Daily Kaplan is going to investigate the accusations of Dan Riehl’s ghoulish behavior?
AnotherBruce
@Jon H:
I’m guessing that 90% of the Teabaggers couldn’t name 3 of the amendments of the Bill of Rights outside of the second amendment. Frankly it’s idiotic to think that passing a health care bill is somehow unconstitutional.
Believe it or not wingnuts, capitalism is not enshrined and so-ci-alism is not forbidden by our constitution. Neither economic system is even mentioned.
jibeaux
Does Dan Riehl Keep Kitten Skulls In His Bedroom, And If So, Does He Fuck Them?
Kryptik
@Warren Terra:
He also gets to have his own co-workers publicly snipe at him and accuse him of being an anti-semite sympathizer, because he dared to point out that talk radio cretins like Limbaugh and Beck are more likely motivators of hate than the interwebz is.
I’m still waiting for when the WaPo cans Eugene Robinson, E.J. Dionne, and Klein himself for being to ‘partisan’.
Midnight Marauder
@Chad N Freude:
Wow. That was masterful.
Kudos.
Bubblegum Tate
If we are all Dan Riehl, then we should all sign a murder/suicide pact.
Zifnab
@Stefan:
I’d like to know where Ed O’Keefe was while Glenn Beck was allegedly raping and murdering a young girl in 1990. I’m sure there’s nothing to this rampant speculation, but I think it would be in everyone’s best interests if we investigated the entire affair.
And just to show I’m being bipartisan, I’d like to know where Wolf Blitzer was during the murder of Vince Foster.
Kryptik
@Chad N Freude:
Careful there, some enterprising ‘journalist’ might take that and run with it seriously. I honestly wouldn’t put it past them…
wasabi gasp
I don’t want to hesitate from jumping to conclusions, but this is clearly a manicure from a pedicurist file.
SenyorDave
I wouldn’t be riling up Dan Riehl. He might have to wipe up the floor with you, just like he did with those “technical thugs” on the DC metro system (of course, that occurred in his very vivid imagination. In reality he slunk away, living his pee-soaked seat).
SiubhanDuinne
@Chad N Freude:
21st century journalism is pining for the fjords.
freelancer
Seriously,
after the burning of Dixie Chicks CD’s for something fairly innocuous that they said in London, at what point is it appropriate for the DFH’s to start considering talk like this Treason?
I think levelling the charge of “Treason” is hyperbolic as it is a capital offense and I consider free speech to be a paramount value, but talk of secession, assassination, and refering to the freely elected leader of this country as “an enemy of humanity” is despicable. This shit needs to be nipped in the bud.
jibeaux
@SenyorDave:
He can also shut down comments just as easily as he’d shut down yo mouth, ’cause he’s an Internet Tough Guy ™.
feebog
Apparently, neither Riehl or O’Keefe ever heard of Occam’s razor. Its pretty clear from the reports so far that this murder was carried out by some rightwingnut with a hardon for the Federal Government. I was involved, to some small extent, in the murder of a Letter Carrier in Chatsworth California and a shootout at a Jewish daycare center in Granada Hills (the two communities are in the NW San Fernando Valley). On the day of the shootings, we did not know for sure that the two were connected until that evening. But by the next day, it was pretty apparent that these were hate crimes (Joseph Ileto, the murdered Letter Carrier was a dark skinned Phillipino).
The point is that once you have the facts we now have in the Kentucky case, its pretty hard to deny that the most likely scenario is an anti-government hate crime.
kommrade reproductive vigor
It’s day 12 of the Hamster Humping scandal and the public still waits for the man who calls himself Dan Riehl to explain why he has not taken steps to refute the rumor that he likes to get it on with hamsters.
And this just in! A person identified as Ed O’Queef has been mentioned in connection with the as yet unproven allegations of rodent raping. Stay tuned. We’ll bring you more innuendo and rumors as they come in.
@Chad N Freude: No. No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no!Eleventy
Chad N Freude
SiubhanDuinne: Ah, a kindred soul. You might be interested in https://balloon-juice.com/?p=27640#comment-1384148. Or not.
Zifnab
@freelancer:
“You’re committing Treason!” is the rhetorical equivalent of “I wish we could lynch you for saying that!” Of course, back in the day, “Treason” was the kind of thing a soldier did when trading information for favors/money from an enemy army, or the culmination of some terrorist plot. Treason got people killed in a very direct way.
A Facebook poll isn’t going to seriously threaten Obama’s life, although it’s probably not the sort of thing you want plastered on your website. Of course, guys showing up with assault rifles at a political address… now we’re entering domestic terrorism territory.
Amazing how much leverage you can get out of the 1st and 2nd Amendments when you’re a screaming tea-bagger.
Stooleo
Far be it for me to speculate that Dan Riehl gives tug jobs to swarthy truckers for a buck a pop, in the Citgo bathroom off route 95 in Trenton NJ.
Warren Terra
Oh, and from later in the chat:
To be fair to O’Keefe, after two separate questions called him out on it, he did walk back on an answer he’d made to another question, in which O’Keefe had appeared to say that it was unfair to expect the Republicans to take any aspect of health care policy seriously.
lou
It would be nice if they would even read the Constitution itself.
The Grand Panjandrum
If only Obama would just release his long form birth certificate this would all go away.
Did anyone else read that thing online about Ed O’Keefe blowing goats?
wasabi gasp
I wouldn’t let that guy even pull my dinghy.
gwangung
They couldn’t name those three amendments even if it was an open book test.
Ed Drone
I think B.O.B. has outed himself as a spoof — he called the “Tea Party Movement” “Teabaggers.” That nomenclature has heretofore been the province of the left, tying a sexual practice to the “patriotic” nitwits in thrall to the most insane wing of an already nutty political party.
Since B.O.B. didn’t call them “Tea Partiers,” but “Teabaggers,”
it’s obvious he’s not with them, and is most likely a proto-leftist if not a true-believing Marxist fifth column adherent.
So, Bill, what’s it like in your cell? Our People’s Commissar is a bit of a dork, but then, what can you do? Our last communique from our “handler” came before the fall of the Berlin Wall, so we’re winging it.
Welcome to the club!
Ed
Chad N Freude
@lou: Never gonna happen. All those polysyllabic words.
Chad N Freude
@gwangung: Not clear that they know how to open a book.
cokane
The best part is that there is no mention by O’Keefe about Riehl’s erroneous suggestion that Sparkman had no children of his own and that he had no teaching degree. Earlier in the WaPo chat, O’Keefe talks about being “good reporters” but feels no need to point this idiocy out. Guys like him must feel they are walking on wingnuts’ eggshells all day long.
slag
I’m pretty sure Dan Riehl is amassing Weapons of Mass Destruction and is plotting to use them against the United States. Would hate to have the smoking gun turn into a mushroom cloud. We really should do something about this.
The Grand Panjandrum
OT: Just a couple of minutes ago during the WH daily press conf with Gibbs some genius asked him if Obama was going to push the case for Chicago when he met with the IOC … … … … I got nothing for that … … Nothing.
Mark S.
I never knew that this came from a Peggy Noonan column.
Balloon Juice Lexicon=National Treasure.
tc125231
“Yes, the right-wing has no shame.”
Yeah, this stuff is right out of Dostoevski’s “Grand Inquisitor.” It’s amazing how incompatible so called “Christian values” become with basic huuman decency when you remove the actual teachings of that pesky Jesus from the picture.
Nauseating. Simply nauseating.
freelancer
@slag:
It would truly be irresponsible not to speculate.
freelancer
@The Grand Panjandrum:
So was that Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd, or Chip Reid?
Network NewsFAIL.
licensed to kill time
As Holmes explains to Watson, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Is it impossible that Dan Riehl
Is it impossible that
I say no! Therefore, however improbable, the fact remains – until Dan Riehl produces evidence that he does NOT have incriminating pictures of the entire WaPo staff w/ farm animals and Ed O’Keefe produces the absence of blown goat residue, I say it must be the truth.
And that’s just where our country is headed these days.
Nellcote
It occurs to me that LaPalin’s tome will be out just in time for the War On Christmas. I guess she’ll be making the rounds spewing her particular brand of Xtian hate all thru the Holdays. I wonder how long she’ll be #1 on the NYT “bestseller” list…and if it will be on the Fiction or Non-fiction list. Rumour is that the first run is 1.5 million copies!
Chad N Freude
@The Grand Panjandrum: More supporting evidence for my earlier comment.
slag
@freelancer: Abso-freakin-lutely. Time to call in the National Guard. This aggression will not stand. Man.
Macayla's Little Friend
O’Keefe: “But what if “Fed” meant something else to Mr. Sparkman or his attackers?”
FEDERAL EYE ?
FEDERAL ?
FED !
Ed O’Keefe signed the scene of his crime and is asking to be caught.
This is not speculation, this is physical evidence.
Ash Can
@Pasquinade:
Pot, meet kettle.
Original Lee
This one’s for Malkin.
bayville
All you have to do is read the archives of Ed O’Keefe’s chats and blog to realize this guy is so in over his head it is ridiculous.
But then again, you can say the same about Paul Kane, Broder and the two lazy Managing Editors that hosted Monday’s chat.
Little Macayla's Friend
O’Keefe: “But what if “Fed” meant something else to Mr. Sparkman or his attackers?”
His blog – FEDERAL EYE ?
FEDERAL ?
FED !
Ed O’Keefe signed the scene of his (truly horrific) crime and is asking to be caught.
This is not speculation, this is physical evidence.
Obama Death Panel Chairman (formerly glocksman)
@Nellcote:
And of those 1.5 million copies, 1.45 million will be bought in bulk by the National Conservative Book Club and TownHall.com to use as promotional giveaways.
Six months from publication you’ll find the remaining 50000 copies in bookstore dollar bins across America.
minachica
@Chad N Freude: No, it was clearly a suicide – he just didn’t have enough time to write the “UP”.
chuck
Clearly FED was written on the victim’s chest as a threat to avenge the defeat of Roger Federer at the hands of Juan Martin Del Potro at the 2009 US Open.
geg6
@chuck:
I heard it was in protest of K-Fed getting fat and having to appear on “Celebrity Fit Club.” Which, I must say, I can kinda sorta understand.
SenyorDave
Six months from publication you’ll find the remaining 50000 copies in bookstore dollar bins across America.
As much as it pains me to say this, because I would love to see the publisher take a huge loss, I think it will sell quite well.
First thing that someone should do is to pop in some parts of it into “The Gender Genie”, which is a website that analyzes whether something has been written by a male of a female. I have tried it with numerous items, and it has never been wrong.
Blurm
I think he was blowing goats with Mickey
Nellcote
@SenyorDave:
linky?
licensed to kill time
@Nellcote:
I typed thegendergenie into google and this is what I got – I’ma gonna try it!
liberal
@Brick Oven Bill:
ROTFLOL!
That’s why they protested the invasion of Iraq (/snark), which was without any declaration of war, as required by that piece of parchment you so insincerely profess to revere.
licensed to kill time
@licensed to kill time:
Hey, it’s pretty neat! It tells you which words it codes as masculine or feminine and scores the text you paste. It got my gender wrong, though – Ha! (To be fair, it says it works best on 500 words or more, and I gave it a few sentences.)
Ash Can
@licensed to kill time: I don’t suppose it codes for “imbecile,” though, does it?
jim
*cough*