Glenn Beck aired another of the James O’Keefe ACORN videos yesterday. This time, Tresa Kaelke, an ACORN employee in San Bernardino, CA tells O’Keefe, who was posing as a pimp, that she once was an escort and got away with killing her abusive husband.
After playing the clip, Beck gets riled up, pondering: “Maybe a jury might conclude that it might be justifiable homicide. I don’t know. But we haven’t even been able to confirm from the state of California, whether Tresa’s husband from 10 years ago was killed, or if he’s dead or if she even had a husband. Did she make the story up? I don’t know. Nobody’s asking questions.”
It appears, Beck’s team didn’t ask questions. But two reporters in San Bernardino did. From their story in the Press-Enterprise:
Since she claimed on the video to have killed her husband, two San Bernardino police homicide detectives interviewed her at the [ACORN] office Tuesday. Police said they have been in contact with Kaelke’s former husbands and the homicide claims do not appear accurate.
One of her ex-husbands, Ronald Kaelke said he was unaware of any investigation or that his ex-wife had made any claims of murder.
“As far as her murdering an ex-husband, that’s news to me,” Ronald Kaelke said. “She’s definitely got problems and goes off the wall sometimes.”
So what does Fox News have to say about Beck playing video of an “off the wall” ACORN employee apparently making things up?
Joel Cheatwood, FNC’s SVP of Development tells TVNewser, “As Glenn has steadfastly maintained throughout the show’s coverage of this latest ACORN scandal, the individuals on the tapes are not the real story.”
Beck, who has criticized the national media for not covering this and other stories, does not host a ‘news’ show but rather is part of the programming division of the channel. None of Fox’s news shows aired this particular tape.
Cheatwood says the real tale of these tapes is the “erratic and unconscionable behavior demonstrated” on them, which has already led to major changes for the organization.
Also, if you look closely at the video you’ll also notice the time stamp (lower left in image above) is off — by about 4 years. Cheatwood tells us, “We’re aware of it – according to the filmmaker, he never changed the date stamp in his camera and has confirmed all the video was shot in 2009.”
And by the way, last night’s show — the one that featured the video of Tresa Kaelke — was Beck’s highest rated program since he joined Fox News in January. Something tells me we may see more tapes like this, whether what’s on them is factual or not.
• See Beck’s segment after the jump…