Some of the Inspiration Behind the Execution Channel

Michael McCord at Daily Kos  writes about some of the real people who inspired his recently published political satire, The Execution Channel:

My trade secret was challenged last week when a reader of the book saw that conservative media provocateur James E. O’Keefe III had made a huckster pit stop in New Hampshire. Said reader made a connection: Is Jason Bravart based on O’Keefe? Time to confess: Yes, sort of.

In the fact-based world of today, O’Keefe was recently in my state to speak to the Mad Hatter faithful and to hawk his new book (“Breakthrough”) about his holy crusade to save democracy by exposing fraud. O’Keefe last made headlines in New Hampshire during presidential primary day in January 2012 when he and a group of pranksters tried to prove voter fraud was possible by registering to vote in the names of people they knew were dead. It was a tasteless and pathetic ploy but typical of the Mad Hatter creed that massive voter fraud must exist because they believe it exists, despite all fact-based evidence to the contrary. According to one press report, O’Keefe played the all-purpose victimization card (he being the subject of government bullying) and, seemingly with a straight face, added that “Our goal is to make society more ethical and transparent. But you have to break through a media firewall to do it.” (It was not without irony that O’Brien introduced O’Keefe at the New Hampshire House Republican Victory PAC of some 40 souls who paid $50 a plate for the honor. It’s hard to imagine two more perfectly match peas in the Mad Hatter pod than O’Keefe and O’Brien.)

In my satirical fiction of tomorrow, the character of Jason Bravtart was certainly informed by O’Keefe. After all, who couldn’t be inspired by a brave soldier in the fight against the insidious poor among us? It took a feat of courage for O’Keefe to take down ACORN whose main crime (in the Mad Hatter version of reality) was to advocate for the poor, especially the urban poor. O’Keefe has become an honored member of the Mad Hatter media and entertainment complex with his infamous career as an agent provocateur and class clown. Of course, he now has a ready-made audience to buy his books and his juvenile-antic, huckster approach to journalism and politics – and he can even become respectable by starting a nonprofit organization with the laugh-out-loud ironical name of Project Veritas.

We first met young Jimmy O'Keefe when he dressed up in his mommy's chinchilla jacket trying to convince us he was a pimp. 

The corporate media bought into his smear campaign against ACORN - and ACORN became THE WORST THING IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE EVER. Imagine the nerve of those folks trying to get poor people to register to vote? Moochers got no business voting - especially brown moochers. 

The fact that ACORN was absolved of all wrong doing didn't matter. Ever. Congress has voted 12 times to defund ACORN since 2011. ACORN was disbanded in 2010. 

Naturally we in NH are quite familiar with Jimmy's attempt at voter fraud in NH. The GOPsters claimed this proved something. They were right, it did - it proved that it's Republicans who perpetuate voter fraud in the state of NH. 

Jimmy and the rest of the Breitbart bunch are so desperate to be taken seriously that every year they have a media conference of their own, in whatever city Netroots Nation is taking  place in. Netroots Nation is a huge conference of lefty and liberal bloggers. The wingnut coterie is considerably smaller, and not taken seriously by anyone, which leads to things like poor Jimmy showing up at Netroots Nation in Providence, RI in 2012, trying to get some media attention. Adam Weinstein of Mother Jones had a little on camera chat with him. 

As Michael points out - the name Project Veritas is laugh out loud funny. A bunch of people engaging in criminal activities, lies, and carefully edited videos who then present themselves as revealing the truth says something both ironic and tragic about the state of US media. 

The Execution Channel - where facts and fiction blur - for your entertainment.