On his radio show today, Fox News host Glenn Beck condemned James O’Keefe — the young conservative activist who posed as a pimp in undercover stings targeted at ACORN — for trying to bug the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) office:
BECK: If they were doing that — that’s Watergate. Insanely stupid and illegal. … I haven’t heard his side, but you don’t do anything illegal, that’s Watergate territory. You just don’t do that. And besides that I don’t think you go dressed up — I mean it’s a senator. For the love of Pete, it’s a senator.
CO-HOST: First of all, it’s different than an ACORN office. Because you’re talking about a U.S. senator here! […]
BECK: It’s exactly the same thing I said for the state dinner. You must not allow — the Secret Service must come down on these peoples in the White House like a box of rocks. You don’t do anything to hurt security for the president or for a senator or anybody else. You don’t mess around with it. Ever, ever, ever, ever. … We have enough [evidence] to, I believe, condemn.
Listen here:
As ThinkProgress first noted, Fox News appeared devastated over the news that the FBI had arrested O’Keefe. Fox reporter Tim Gaughan tried to downplay the news yesterday, saying, “[It’s a] very weird story that probably needs a lot of context and a lot of looking into.” And as Media Matters pointed out, Beck and fellow Fox host Sean Hannity — who have promoted O’Keefe’s videos and scolded the media for ignoring them — didn’t mention the incident on their shows last night. Fox host Bill O’Reilly ignored the incident as well.
Earlier today, CAPAction launched a twitter petition calling on Fox News to apologize for their roles in promoting O’Keefe. Sign it here.