On Countdown, Keith Olbermann discusses new information
surrounding the break in and attempted wiretap of Senator Landrieu’s
office by James O’Keefe and three others. Olbermann describes O’Keefe’s
efforts as “part of an ad hoc dirty tricks campaign focused on health
care reform” that extends to other political figures, such as Karl Rove.
Nation editor Chris Hayes joins Olbermann to talk about O’Keefe’s
actions.

Hayes calls this a “part of a long, conservative right-wing tradition,”
of dirty tricks, which college republicans and others in conservative
politics have been doing for decades. But what frustrates Hayes the most
about Landrieu-gate is the sense of entitlement that O’Keefe and others
enraged about health care reform seem to have. Hayes points out the
contradiction between O’Keefe’s attempted wiretap and his actions to
tarnish ACORN, whose organizations helped people who had very little
access to their own political representatives.

“What really frustrates me…[is] that it is such an outrage that the
people who are angry about health care won’t get their calls answered
and that that calls for this kind of escalation and dirty tricks…when
the same people who they were making fun of and attempting to humiliate
live in neighborhoods everyday where they are ignored by their political
representatives,” Hayes says.

—Morgan Ashenfelter

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