Hold the Phones!

Many of you will have seen the news about ACORN-exposer James O'Keefe and three friends being arrested for trying to tamper with Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu's phone system. msnbc

I find the Right's response to this felony to be telling. 1. It was a prank! Not a crime! 2. Michael Moore does this all the time and the Left cheers! 3. The liberal media is making more out of this than it is! 4. If they shouldn't have been there then security shouldn't have let them in.

Where do I even begin?! Let's start with the obvious:

If these were four unemployed men of middle-eastern descent committing a "prank" rather than some conservative rich kids (one of whose father is the acting US attorney in Western LA), how would Fox News be reacting?

Tampering with a Senator's phones is illegal. Tampering with MY phone is illegal. If you come to my house under false pretenses to disable my phone--even if it's just some kooky, wacky fun for you--it is still illegal. More so if the phones you are attempting to disable belong to the United States government. At the very least it's criminal trespass.

Michael Moore is one of my least favorite people. I don't watch his stuff if I can help it. But here's the difference: Michael Moore has never committed a felony. He's been an obnoxious pain in the ass and provided some very awkward and uncomfortable moments for people in power (and the viewing audience), but he has never tampered with someone's telephone or impersonated a phone repair person for the purposes of gaining entry to a secure area to embarrass someone. He has always just kind of allowed them to embarrass themselves in the open, without all this college-style dress-up chicanery.

To believe the security excuse, then you'd have to let every terrorist off the hook, since after all it was airport security that let them on the plane, and if they shouldn't have been on the plane then it's not their fault that they got on the plane. Yeah, I don't see anyone at Faux News taking up that opinion.

So let's just call this for what it is. Four guys who take their cues from their days as conservative college newspaper people, who think dressing up and playing pretend "Jackass-style" is the way to speak truth to power. Point being, that mess might work on some college campus but it doesn't really work in the real world. You know, where there are real consequences for your actions. Where committing a felony is a serious offense, even if you did go buy some cool costumes.