The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Someone Trying to Breathe Life into a Three-Year Old Dead Horse’

Posted on | October 2, 2012 | 21 Comments

Thus does John Fund dismiss an attempt by Nadia Naffe to create controversy around James O’Keefe III over a planned “sting” video that never happened, as embarrassing as the details may be.

O’Keefe, as you certainly know, is the young activist who became famous for his collaboration with Hannah Giles in the 2009 undercover videos that destroyed ACORN, and which sparked the successful launch of Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website. Naffe is a former Republican operative who worked with O’Keefe until, in March of this year, she accused O’Keefe of sexual harassment and worse.

Naffe had been “terminated” by the Florida GOP in 2004, which led to a lawsuit that, if O’Keefe knew about it before he hired her, should have given him pause. Who would knowingly hire anyone whose former employment resulted in litigation? And this is especially true of someone whose work would require a high degree of confidentiality.

So now Naffe has made herself a weapon with which O’Keefe’s enemies seek to destroy him. She has made league with Neal Rauhauser — assisting Rauhauser in an attempt, on behalf of Brett Kimberlin, to get access to e-mails that Naffe wrongfully obtained from O’Keefe — and is now apparently ready to file a lawsuit against Patrick “Patterico” Frey:

Rauhauser has been obsessed with Patterico for more than a year, going back to the 2011 WeinerGate scandal, when Rauhauser (under his “Stranded Wind” alias) published a series of posts at Daily Kos accusing Patterico of all manner of wrongdoing:

It was in the aftermath of the WeinerGate scandal that Rauhauser evidently joined forces with Brett Kimberlin and Kimberlin’s tax-exempt 501(c)4 group Velvet Revolution. Kimberlin had his own grievance against Patterico dating back to October 2010, when Kimberlin threatened a lawsuit against Patterico.

Similarly, both Rauhauser and Kimberlin had been striving for some time to destroy Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keefe, which is how Nadia Naffe’s complaints against O’Keefe brought this together with their grievances against Patterico. When Naffe made her accusations against O’Keefe in March, Patterico raised questions about Naffe’s story and subsequently discovered the public-record documents relating to her 2004 lawsuit against the Republican Party.

Patterico’s criticism of Naffe and his publication of those documents is, so far as I can tell, the only grounds for complaint Naffe has against him and I can’t imagine any court finding Patterico guilty of anything, but this lawsuit is just another typical product of the Kimberlin-Rauhauser “accuse the accusers” strategy. Once they target someone, the accusations proliferate endlessly as part of an orchestrated effort to discredit anyone who might accuse them of wrongdoing. (See my June 17 article, “‘Scrubbed’ Writings Show Kimberlin Associate Neal Rauhauser’s Obsessions,” for some relevant examples.)

Remember that Rauhauser solicited the same California attorney, Jay Leiderman, in an attempt to get SWATting target Mike Stack to file a nuisance suit against Patterico.

It is most unfortunate that Rosie Gray of Buzzfeed has assisted O’Keefe’s enemies in what is, in fact, nothing more than the latest manifestation of a bizarre personal vendetta. “Dead horse” though the story may be, innocent people still suffer real harm from these deliberate attacks. Assisting sadists in the satisfaction of their depraved appetites is not properly the business of a journalist.

UPDATE: Linked by Jackie Wellfonder and Bill Hoge — thanks! — and thanks likewise to the commenter who points out that Jay Leiderman is also the attorney who represents imprisoned former “Anonymous” spokesman Barrett Brown.

Brown’s involvement with Rauhauser became public last month when Barrett threatened me, then published a series of private online chats he had with Patterico, evidently in an effort to defame Patterico as being party to a (wholly imaginary) conspiracy.

Brown’s motives in that incident are impossible to determine, nor do we know what (if anything) connects that failed smear with Barrett’s subsequent public meltdown that led to his arrest. Absent such knowledge we can only observe that, in general, bad things happen to people who actively ally themselves with evil.

 

Category: Andrew Breitbart, Barrett Brown, James O'Keefe, Patterico, The Kimberlin Files

Comments

21 Responses to “‘Someone Trying to Breathe Life into a Three-Year Old Dead Horse’”

  1. Sour Grapes Naffe « Jackie Wellfonder – Raging Against the Rhetoric
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 11:09 am

    […] is #WAR, so trivial pursuits like this are to be expected I suppose, but disappointing nonetheless. (The Other McCain) Thus does John Fund dismiss an attempt by Nadia Naffe to create controversy around James O’Keefe […]

  2. McGehee
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 11:33 am

    I’m going to need more popcorn. If anybody needs me I’ll be at Sam’s Club.

  3. EarlScruggs
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 11:41 am

    Jay Leiderman is also one of Barrett Brown’s attorneys.

    Layers.

  4. sarahplumpkin
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 11:49 am

    “Who would knowingly hire anyone whose former employment resulted in litigation? And this is especially true of someone whose work would require a high degree of confidentiality.”

    Hmmmm.. So that means Aaron Worthing, James O Keefe himself (okay, his career actually entailed CRIMINAL charges) and many other RW conservative operatives should never, ever be rehired.. Because what employer WANTS to hire criminals and tort-abusers?

    I know, it’s hard. Irony is past the grade school level.

  5. Is Dread Pirate #BrettKimberlin Trying to Open a Second Front | hogewash
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 11:54 am

    […] a Second Front Posted on 2 October, 2012 by wjjhoge Stacy McCain has coverage of more lawfare in the works. It may be that Team Kimberlin is opening up a Western Front. Share […]

  6. WJJ Hoge
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 12:01 pm

    It seems that all is not quiet on the Western Front.

  7. rosalie
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 12:04 pm

    Is Acorn really destroyed?

  8. K-Bob
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 12:14 pm

    Evidently it’s too hard for some people to tell the difference between litigation due to employment, versus court proceedings having nothing to do with employment.

    It’s as easy as, “one of these things is not like the others.” Usually that predates grade school.

  9. JeffS
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 1:14 pm

    Layers and networks. It’s the dot what need connecting.

  10. Adjoran
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 2:30 pm

    We know you’re irritable, but we still insist you pay for your own birth control.

  11. Adjoran
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 2:56 pm

    One thing that strikes me about Liederman: have you EVER seen a lawyer who blogs, tweets, and emails more about what he is ABOUT to do? I doubt he is running up billables since the miscreants he deals with don’t have a nickel between them, and if some leftist sugar mama like Streisand is footing the bill he would want to keep it reasonable.

    So why not just file the darn suit instead of tweeting every pit stop along the way to the courthouse?

  12. ThomasD
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 2:59 pm

    Sam’s doesn’t have enough for this, you might consider purchasing some futures instead.

  13. MrPaulRevere
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 3:27 pm

    Speaking of Mr. Brown, he or someone acting on his behalf have apparently posted another rambling pastebin doc. complaing the feds broke his ribs (poor baby) and refuse to give him opiates. And of course he continues to rant about HB Gary: Anonymous’ Barrett Brown Writes Letter from Prison, Claims the FBI Broke His Ribs http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/09/anonymous_posts_letter_purport.php

  14. Nadia Naffe Lies About James O’Keefe
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 3:29 pm

    […] R.S. McCain gets into the nitty-gritty details of the Buzzfeed hit piece published about O’Keefe that comes right before Naffe is supposedly suing Patrick Frey. […]

  15. McGehee
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 4:43 pm

    Futures are already too expensive, what with the drought and all.

    I suppose I could eat pork rinds instead…

    …oh, @#$!!

  16. Dan Collins
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 5:05 pm

    Maybe Patterico offered her drinks and then left her in a restored barn to dry out.

  17. Adobe_Walls
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 5:15 pm

    No it’s not. ACORN recieved a few bruises, perhaps even a few scars but many of it’s branches merely renamed themselves and are still recieving federal funding using the same tax IDs they had previously. A thorough cleansing is required and much more oversite, or better yet the elimination of the grant programs ACORN has been eligilble for.

  18. rosalie
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 5:39 pm

    “A thorough cleansing is required and much more oversite, or better yet the elimination of the grant programs ACORN has been eligilble for.”
    The big question is who’s going to do that?

  19. Wombat_socho
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 8:01 pm

    Also, it needs to find a less disgusting username. Until then, it can sit in the corner.

  20. K-Bob
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 11:25 pm

    Because successful lawyering requires a commitment to “chair time,” and everyone knows that chair time interferes with “catching a buzz time.”

  21. K-Bob
    October 2nd, 2012 @ 11:27 pm

    Not the pork futures!!!

    oh noes!!

    Must stock up on bacon.