Conservative activist James O’Keefe, who specializes in making secret video recordings and then dishonestly editing them to attack groups and people he doesn’t like, claims that he is “feared and hated and attacked in a very nasty way” by liberals who “don’t play nice” and want to “destroy” him “using the government.”
In an interview on Eagle Forum Live with Phyllis Schlafly’s niece Anne Cori this weekend, O’Keefe lamented that his fellow conservatives are “afraid to be effective because to be effective is to be hated.”
Asked if he had any advice for struggling activists, the ever-humble O’Keefe responded: “To speak frankly: Get some balls.”
O’Keefe: I think the problem with the Right, the Right – that is, the conservatives – they don’t like blood in the water. I mean that in a figurative sense. They don’t like shaking things up. They’re afraid to be effective because to be effective is to be hated. One of the things that Rush Limbaugh said, I can’t remember where he said it, but he said, ‘You have to understand that when people hate you and fear you, it’s a sign of respect. And I think it’s impossible to be effective as a conservative without being feared and hated and attacked in a very nasty way. These people don’t play nice, they don’t debate you. They try to destroy you using the government.
And I think people need to realize, the book ‘Breakthrough’ is about what one must go through in today’s society to speak truth to power. It’s very different than it used to be, I think.
Cori: Well, James, do you have advice for people who wilt in the face of criticism?
O’Keefe: Advice for them? To speak frankly: Get some balls.
