Too Much Vino and Project Veritas: My Extremely Weird Evening with James O’Keefe

I thought I was attending a book launch party. Then came the hagiographic techno-cabaret

Rolling Stone, 2/1/2022

MIAMI — The strobes are pulsing. The fog machines are pumping. Three professional dancers wearing haute-couture costumes that appear to be made of newsprint contort themselves on stage to the all-encompassing roar of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Their dance partners, dressed in blue windbreakers and FBI caps, run their hands lasciviously up these mainstream-media sirens. Behind them, on an enormous screen, graphics emerge through war-zone CGI smoke: the New York Times logo, followed by a “vs.,” followed by: “Veritas. Be Brave. Do Something.”

For once, no one can dispute the truth of a Project Veritas claim. This is, as promised, an unforgettable performance.

I’m standing in the back of the Glimmer ballroom at the La Fontainebleau hotel in Miami with all the other plebs who could only afford the $125 general admission to what Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe billed as “the party of the century.” We are gathered here today to celebrate the release of his latest book. I’m finding out in real time that that celebration will include a 50-minute musical-theater production dedicated to telling O’Keefe’s story in song, dance, and strobe light.

My complimentary copy of O’Keefe’s book, American Muckraker, sits next to me on a cocktail table alongside several empty glasses. The gentleman responsible for half of them, who does not wish to go on record, is enthusiastically telling me that I should consider becoming an undercover agent.

I tell him I’ll think about it.

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