Abbie Boudreau targeted by James O'Keefe for "palace of pleasure" video

By Matt DeLong

This is strange. According to CNN:

A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, according to e-mails and a planning document .

James O'Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get investigative correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.

The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before the meeting occurred.

"I never intended to become part of the story," Boudreau said. "But things suddenly took a very strange turn."

Indeed. In a 13-page document obtained by CNN, O'Keefe said he intended to "punk" CNN by attempting to "seduce [Boudreau], on camera, to use her for a video."

Update: CNN has posted video of Boudreau explaining the ordeal.

In case you have forgotten, O'Keefe is the young conservative activist who brought down the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in 2009 with a series of heavily edited undercover videos in which he and an associate posed as a pimp and prostitute seeking tax advice.

O'Keefe returned to the headlines in January when he and three accomplices were arrested for trying to tamper with the phone system in Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-La.) New Orleans office. O'Keefe and his friends later received probation after pleading guilty to charges related to the caper.