The ACORN pimp's big mistake

James O'Keefe, the filmmaker who posed as a pimp to make undercover videos skewering the anti-poverty group ACORN, was arrested yesterday for attempting to tamper with Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's telephones. The FBI says O'Keefe and three other men got into Landrieu's New Orleans offices by claiming to be repair technicians, and were trying to get access to trunk telephone lines in the building. O'Keefe was reportedly recording his colleague's actions with a cell phone. Does O'Keefe's arrest call into question the credibility of his damaging portrayal of ACORN? (Watch an MSNBC report about James O'Keefe's arrest)

This could vindicate ACORN: Conservatives heaped praise on James O'Keefe for exposing alleged corruption at ACORN, says Robert Schlesinger in U.S. News & World Report, by secretly videotaping employees discussing ways to dodge taxes and set up a brothel with underaged sex slaves. But "if he is willing to break the law" in an effort to embarrass a U.S. senator, "wouldn't he [also] be willing" to use dishonest techniques to make ACORN look bad, as the liberal activist group's defenders have claimed?

"James O’Keefe arrested, undercutting ACORN allegations"

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Let's wait for the facts: ACORN and its mainstream media lapdogs are of course "jumping to conclusions" about James O'Keefe's arrest, says Andrew Breitbart in Big Government, because they want to discredit him. But the FBI has not accused the men of "wiretapping" and it's still unclear exactly what happened, so let's "wait until the facts are in."

"MSM leaping to conclusions -- while Big Government waits for facts"

There's an important lesson in this for the right: Of course James O'Keefe and the others are innocent until proven guilty, says conservative commentator Michelle Malkin in her blog, but the facts that are available, in the FBI affidavit, look pretty damning. Regardless of how this turns out, "let it be a lesson to aspiring" investigative journalists on the right: "Don’t get carried away. And don’t become what you are targeting."

"Ugh: ACORN-buster busted at Sen. Landrieu’s office in alleged bugging plot"