James O'Keefe and other "stellar" alumni of Leadership Institute fame...goal is to push buttons.

madfloridian

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Sun Jan-31-10 10:19 PM
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James O'Keefe and other "stellar" alumni of Leadership Institute fame...goal is to push buttons.

And they do a very good job of it. Here are some of the accomplishments of that group formed by Morton Blackwell. Their goal is "controlled controversy", guaranteed to anger.

First about O'Keefe.

O'Keefe crew's conservative training

James O�Keefe, middle, and two of his alleged co-conspirators � Stan Dai and Joe Basel. | AP Photos Photo: AP photo composite by POLITICO

Founded in 1979 by veteran Republican activist Morton Blackwell, the Leadership Institute has worked with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove and Grover Norquist. The group raked in $6.6 million in 2008, according to its most recent publicly available IRS filings, which doesn�t list donors.

�What we teach is to use creative and imaginative ways to make your points, to reveal what we think is political correctness run amuck, liberal hypocrisy and double standards� on left-leaning college campuses, said Sutton, who supervised O�Keefe at the institute until O�Keefe was asked to leave because his investigative work could interfere with the Institute�s Internal Revenue Service standing.

Sutton said the Institute suggested to O�Keefe that he ask Rutgers officials to banish the breakfast cereal Lucky Charms from campus dining halls because it was offensive to Irish American students. O�Keefe took the advice a step further and video recorded the meeting, posting it on YouTube, which Sutton said was an example of him pushing the envelope.

Sutton said it seems likely that Basel and Dai likely met O�Keefe after he graduated and began working at the Leadership Institute, traveling the country training college students on how to employ similar techniques.

Another stellar alumni of the Leadership Institute was Jeff Gannon, who weaseled his way into the WH press room.

Jeff Gannon's alma mater

Jeff Gannon's alma mater: The Leadership Institute

The only journalism-related credential listed on former Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon's Talon News bio -- which was removed from Talon's website after Media Matters for America drew attention to Gannon and Talon News -- was The Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism. While Talon News appears to be more of a Republican political advocacy group than a media outlet, The Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism appears to be more of a training ground for Republican advocacy in the media than a school of journalism.

The Leadership Institute's president and founder, Morton C. Blackwell, told The Washington Post in 1992 that the Institute is "conservative, but not partisan." A review of the Institute's leadership and programming indicates otherwise.

The girl who started the "Catch the Illegal Immigrant" game was a field representative of the Leadership Institute at the time.

Her name was Morgan Wilkins.

Picture courtesy of Hillbilly Report

She was named Olbermann's Worst person for starting the games about illegal immigrants, and I think she started the game called Guns and something where they pretended to shoot our Democratic candidates.

Hillbilly Report
Jan. 16, 2007
Will former Leadership Institute field representative and noted College Republican, Keith Olbermann�s �Worst Person In The World�, Morgan Wilkins announce her campaign for Kentucky Federation of College Republicans Chairman in the coming weeks? A website, www.MorganWilkins.com, has been registered, and a greeting at the site promises a full launch soon. Stay tuned.

One of the most famous alumni was Karl Rove.

Picture courtesy of Salon graphics

The GOP's "controlled controversy"...outrageous enough to make us angry. Deliberate.

Yet Blackwell's foundation, the Leadership Institute, is not a Republican organization. It's a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) charity, drawing the overwhelming majority of its $9.1 million annual budget from tax-deductible donations. Despite its legally required "neutrality," the institute is one of the best investments the conservative movement has ever made. Its walls are plastered with framed headshots of former students -- hundreds of state and local legislators sprinkled with smiling members of the U.S. Congress, and even the perky faces of two recently crowned Miss Americas. Thirty-five years ago, Blackwell dispatched a particularly promising 17-year-old pupil named Karl Rove to run a youth campaign in Illinois; Jeff Gannon, a far less impressive student, attended the Leadership Institute's Broadcast Journalism School.

That mention of the Miss Americas is from 2005's Salon article called My Right Wing Degree. I wonder which two they mean?

Some of their accomplishments of which they are proud.

The Leadership Institute teaches the same principle. Controlled controversy -- making your point in a manner so bombastic that your opponents blow their cool -- is a Blackwell specialty. Before the 2004 Republican Convention, the conservative elder personally went to a drugstore and bought little pink heart stickers, bandages and purple nail polish. At home, he made the "Purple Heart Band-Aids" that he later distributed in Madison Square Garden to mock John Kerry's war wounds. From Blackwell's perspective, the Kerry camp's outrage at the gag was a tactical disaster. Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe, Blackwell says, kept the story alive for days by "running around like a chicken with its head cut off."

Blackwell thought Jeff Gannon's White House access was hilariously funny. Here are his comments.

Blackwell thought Jeff Gannon's access to the White House press group was just so funny. He laughed out loud. Then he said:

"The moral is that if it's your tail that's being clipped, you want it clipped once," concludes Blackwell. "But if you get a chance to clip your opponent's tail, clip that puppy as often as you can."

That may be a lesson our party needs to learn...""But if you get a chance to clip your opponent's tail, clip that puppy as often as you can."