‘Dirty Tricks’ Team Caught in the Act

NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 30 — The fallout from the arrest last Monday of four right-wing political operatives attempting to bug the local offices of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu continues to provoke uncomfortable questions and pointed commentary.

The four arrested, James O’Keefe, Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan and Stan Dai, were all twentysomething activists seen as up-and-coming stars among conservatives.

O’Keefe had already made a name for himself among the far right after dressing up as a pimp and going into a local office of the ACORN reform coalition asking for advice on how to start a brothel. That frame-up “sting operation” made him a darling of Fox News, rightwing talk radio and associated blogs.

On Jan. 25, O’Keefe, Basel and Flanagan entered the federal building dressed as “telephone repairmen,” according to the federal indictment. While O’Keefe held a cell phone and recorded what happened, Basel and Flanagan asked to be escorted to the electronic switchboard. At that point, the three were arrested, as was Dai, who was in a car down the street with a listening device.

While no evidence has yet been released pointing to exactly what the four were planning after accessing the electronic switchboard, it is clear that the target of these far-right political operatives was the single Democratic U.S. Senator from Louisiana.

Landrieu has been under attack in recent months by the corporatist right because of her nominal support for Obama’s health care “reform” plan. It is apparent that this was a large part of the motivation behind whatO’Keefe and his three cohorts were doing.

But it would be naive to think that this was some unsanctioned act committed by “lone wolves” without some training, funding or, most importantly, political direction.

On the contrary, given the rising prominence all four of them had among rightwing corporatists, it is most likely this attempted “dirty trick” was an orchestrated action.

O’Keefe and Basel were well known in rightwing circles as “conservative journalists.” Both had received training from the so-called “Leadership Institute,” a think tank that trains rightists to start “conservative campus newspapers” and engage in “dirty tricks” to disrupt political opponents.

Dai and Flanagan both had experience with campus groups that have ties to the conservative faction of the U.S. intelligence agencies, and both had connections to the “operations” (read: espionage) wing of the CIA.

In the wake of this incident, an almost universal comparison to the Watergate scandal has emerged as a popular media theme. However, there are fundamental differences between the two events — differences that expose the transformation of American capitalism from a nominal democratic republic into a corporatist military-police state.

The most obvious is the sheer cowardice of the Democratic Party, the obvious target of this anti-democratic attack. Like with O’Keefe’s frame-up of ACORN last year, the Democrats are running for cover in the face of the rightwing onslaught. It is clear they have no intention on pursuing this any farther than Fox News will let them go.

The same is true for the corporate media, which would rather report on a “gotcha” scandal like the ACORN mess, even though it was all a sham, than a very real case of an attack on the offices of a sitting senator.

There is little doubt that as more information comes out, less of it will be reported in “official” circles. That means if you want to learn more, you’ll have to read WPA.