Because it’s yet another poorly executed bumbling failure. People talk like O’Keefe is some American version of Vladislav Surkov playing four dimensional chess and that we are all falling into his little trap. But they’re just too incompetent to warrant the comparison. If they could execute any of their bizarre little pranks then they would maybe deserve some of this and I’d maybe consider them as some kind of threat. But tthey come undone in the most hilarious ways, like leaving a voicemail for one of their marks and forget to hang up and immediately start talking about the scam they are conducting.

https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/935274569778319360

I’d be quite happy for his funders to continue wasting their money on things like this

> If they could execute any of their bizarre little pranks then they would maybe deserve some of this and I’d maybe consider them as some kind of threat.

But, they can: the refunding and destruction of ACORN succeeded, as in many jurisdictions has the defunding of Planned Parenthood, both on the back of O'Keefe propaganda stunts (that we debunked in the mainstream media rapidly, sure, but that did little to blunt the political impact of the resulting propaganda.)

The propaganda isn't to persuade the broad public, it's to mobilize a sufficient segment of the activist base of the right. And, sure, only one in a dozen or so has any real effect, but it's that one in a dozen or so that keeps him getting funded through the other 11. Because the losses don't have much political cost.

It's a self-own because this doesn't cast shade on real allegations, it does the opposite by showing that the WaPo is doing diligence on the allegations. It probably doesn't matter though: folks who trust the WaPo already know they do diligence, and folks who don't trust them won't care.

My point being, that the intersection set of group "readers of this WaPo piece" and "voters of Alabama" are already polarized such that the gain from the in-group (i.e., Trump supporters in Alabama) might be greater than publication of the own-goal.

Consider: what if O'Keefe is just a decoy?