If the left is good at anything it is manufactured outrage. A prime example of this is the whole sorry affair involving the murders in a black church in South Carolina by what is generally considered be a mentally disturbed young man who had a Confederate battle flag on his car’s license plate. This led to a major eructation of outrage. It even led NBC affiliate WXIA-TV in Atlanta to ask “Is the Confederate flag the American swastika?” They seem to think the answer is “yes.”

If there is anything that acts as catnip to the left more than any sighting of the Confederate battle flag it is when two or more conservatives gather together to advance conservative ideas. You only have to listen to the deranged rants by [mc_name name=’Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000146′ ] against the Koch brothers to get a flavor of it. A second favorite target is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). While ALEC is a very small organization, it is very effective in fighting the conservative fight in state legislatures. This is important:

Last Tuesday, Republicans made historic gains in the nation’s state legislatures. The GOP now controls 68 out of 98 partisan state legislative chambers — the highest number in the history of the party. Republicans currently hold the governorship and both houses of the legislature in 23 states (24 if Sean Parnell wins re-election in Alaska), while Democrats have that level of control in only seven.

Back in June, the “investigative reporter” for WXIA_TV (Is the Confederate flag the American swastika?), a guy name Brendan Keefe set out to do a smear on ALEC which was meeting in Savannah. He registered at the conference hotel under an assumed name and tried to crash the meeting. Oddly enough, if he had wanted to attend all he needed to do was request media credentials. As Erick wrote:

What he failed to mention is that the event held by the right-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council was open to the press, he did not register for the event, he registered at the hotel under an assumed name, and the hotel was not a resort, just a hotel in Savannah. More particularly, it was the Hyatt in Savannah.

Brendan Keefe, in his video, tries to claim that because he is Georgia media he is credentialed for ALEC’s event. This obfuscates the fact that Keefe did not register for ALEC’s event. He’s demanding access to the event held by a private group that, irony of ironies, he could have gotten into had he bothered to register.

But Keefe wanted a sensational story for sweeps week, so he manufactured scandal where there was none. Then he hounded people at the event where, again, had he registered he’d have been given direct access. He also claimed to be a registered guest at the hotel, but the hotel told ALEC’s communications department that if he was a registered guest, he had checked in under a different name.

At the end of Brendan Keefe’s story, he cited Georgia legislator Nan Orrock who claims she dropped out of the event because it was just a bunch of “angry white men.” What Brendan Keefe did not report is that Orrock is a member of several closed left-wing groups, including serving as Leadership Chair of Progressive States Action’s Public Education Working Group. The Progressive States Action group is a left-wing competitor to ALEC.

In fact, throughout Brendan Keefe’s report he failed to disclose any of these things while following a lot of the left-wing talking points put out by ALEC’s competitors. He manufactured the story for sweeps week, relied on leftwing legislators to attack their conservative counterparts, claimed things that cannot be substantiated, and most importantly failed to note that had he just registered for the event, he could have gone behind the very doors he claimed were closed in face.

It seems that Keefe was able to convince a woman to marry him — something of a sweeps-worthy event in and of itself — and in the process produced a cheesy, horrible, cringe-worthy “wedding announcement.” Don’t watch this if you have problem with incontinence. Anyway, the American swastika features prominently:

Does this mean that either Keefe or his bride are neo-Confederates or racists? I don’t know. From what we’ve told by the left, the answer could very well be yes. Even if Keefe is a racist, one would think when your employer is leading the charge against all things Confederate — to the extent of sandblasting the Holy Trinity of the Confederacy off Stone Mountain — you might not use the Confederate battle flag in your bizarre little wedding video. The video does, however, make a compelling case that Keefe is an idiot and a dishonest left-wing hack masquerading as a journalist.