The conservative Internet entrepreneur on bringing down Acorn, Hollywood liberals, and embarrassing the mainstream media.

By JAMES TARANTO

Hollywood

Dressing up as a pimp and prostitute in order to seek Acorn’s help in starting a child sex-slavery ring wasn’t Andrew Breitbart’s idea. But without the Internet entrepreneur’s flair for publicity, the hidden-camera sting might not have produced such impressive results. Within days of his publishing the video exposé, government agencies were cutting ties with the left-wing advocacy and community-organizing group, Congress was voting to end its federal funding, and news organizations were rushing to catch up with a sensational story they had initially resisted or ignored.

James O’Keefe, the 25-year-old aspiring filmmaker who played the pimp in the Acorn meetings, came to Mr. Breitbart in early August with his videos. They showed Mr. O’Keefe and his putative partner in crime, 20-year-old Hannah Giles, asking Acorn counselors for advice on how to evade the authorities while setting up a business offering the sexual services of underage girls smuggled into the U.S. from El Salvador. It was a shocking and outlandish tale, but employees in at least five Acorn offices fell for it and offered to help.

“I had a 20-year-old and a 25-year-old and my integrity on the line if we were going to launch this,” Mr. Breitbart says. “It was so obvious that the mainstream media, given this information, would not cover it and would, in effect, attempt to cover it up.” So he devised an intricate strategy of rolling out the videos one at a time, anticipating Acorn’s defenses and rebutting each in turn with the next video.

The first, recorded at Acorn’s Baltimore office, appeared Sept. 10 on Fox News Channel and on Mr. Breitbart’s new Web site, BigGovernment.com, a group blog that combines reporting and libertarian-leaning polemics. Four more videos followed over the next week. “This plan wasn’t just a means to defend against the media’s desire to attack the messenger,” Mr. Breitbart says. “It was also a means to attack the media and to expose them . . . for the partisan hacks that they are.” One need not agree with that harsh characterization to acknowledge that Mr. Breitbart largely succeeded in catching news organizations flat-footed and embarrassing them into reluctantly covering the story.

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