Slog tipper Scary Tyler Moore wants us to know about the next trick from conservative "prankster" James O'Keefe (you may remember him from the ACORN mess, and the time he tried and badly failed to seduce a CNN reporter with a yacht full of dildoes.) His latest schtick, according to Jezebel, is using an operative to catch a teacher on tape saying a racial slur. But the racial slur was totally in context, and the teacher didn't know she was being recorded:

Basically, O'Keefe set an operative to chat up special education teacher Alissa Ploshnick at a conference last summer for a video called "Teacher's Union Gone Wild." Because the teachers are mostly chicks! After the operative bought her drinks, she described a colleague in the Passaic school system who had been demoted, but not fired, for calling a student the n-word. She did not know she was being recorded. Girls, will you never learn not to drink with strange men?

Later, O'Keefe's goons showed up at Ploshnick's house and shoved a camera and a microphone in her face to ask her to repeat the story. She declined to talk. The school's response? To suspend her for nine days and dock a pay raise. Because she said the word on video, apparently, even though she was criticizing someone else using it. (The superintendent also denied the incident she described took place.)

Here's video:

O'Keefe is using this as a way to argue against teacher's unions (I told you Waiting for Superman was a bad idea, guys). He didn't account for the fact that Ploshnick is formerly famous for literally throwing herself in front of a runaway van to save the lives of her students. That Ploshnick's school throws her under the bus now because some pleased-with-himself hack of a gotcha "journalist"* catches her discussing another teacher's offense is a real goddamned crime.

It's apparent that conservatives are feeling around, trying to figure out the right tack to take on education. Between O'Keefe's weird, creepy video and Sarah Palin sneering and rolling her eyes at a teacher, I can tell them that they're on the wrong road. Railing against educators is not going to be very successful for long.

* And say what you will about Michael Moore—I have my problems with him, too—but he would never do this kind of unethical bullshit to push a story through. Mark my words: O'Keefe is going to make a mistake one day soon that will make conservatives ashamed that they ever praised him. I don't know exactly how it's going to fall, but it's going to be egregious and it's going to be huge.