The San Bernardino Sun reports that Tresa Kaelke “feared for her safety” when she spoke with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, which is why she continued to work with the undercover journalists. That meme comes to an embarrassing end in Part 2 of their video from this encounter. Does this look like a woman in fear of the supposed prostitute, or someone who wanted to help the prospective child-prostitution ringleader evade the long arm of the law? You decide:
Update: I’m really not sure why Media Matters feels the need to interject itself into this story, but they sent out a press release about an hour ago that blames Fox News for accusing Kaelke of murder:
Today, Media Matters for America highlighted the fact that Fox News repeatedly broadcast and promoted a shocking but entirely fictitious claim made by San Bernardino ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke that she murdered her former husband.
Um, Fox News broadcast an “entirely fictitious claim” made by Kaelke about herself. What’s the journalistic lesson here — how dare you smear someone by broadcasting a charge she made against herself? Did Media Matters criticize KCAL-9 for airing California Assemblyman Michael Duvall’s admission on a live microphone about having sex with two lobbyists who had business before his committee? Duvall later claimed that wasn’t true, either.
Perhaps if the charge that Kaelke murdered her former husband is false, then Kaelke should refrain from making it.
So why did she? Media Matters is helping ACORN push their spin on it:
Furthermore, Kaelke has said that when she made the claim, she was seeking to deliberately mislead the undercover videographers, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, of whom she was suspicious.
“They were not believable,” Kaelke is quoted as saying in an ACORN press release. “Somewhat entertaining, but they weren’t even good actors. I didn’t know what to make of them. They were clearly playing with me. I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me.”
Kaelke’s remarks have thus far been largely ignored by Fox News.
Gee, could they be ignoring it because ACORN told the San Bernardino Sun an entirely different story? ACORN tried claiming to the Sun that she feared for her safety, while Media Matters flogs the notion that she was having fun with them. Which is it?
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