O'Keefe was criticized for his failed sting, and
The Washington Post was praised.
Rod Dreher of
The American Conservative praised the
Post and called on conservative donors to stop giving money to O'Keefe's outfit.
[163] Dan McLaughlin of the conservative
National Review said that O'Keefe's sting was an "
own goal" and that O'Keefe was doing a disservice to the conservative movement;
[164] Jim Geraghty of the
National Review made a similar assessment.
[165] Byron York of
The Washington Examiner said that O'Keefe's "idiocy" was "beyond boneheaded," and that "O'Keefe really ought to hang it up."
[166] Ben Shapiro, the conservative editor in chief of
The Daily Wire, said that the botched sting was "horrible, both morally and effectively."
[166] Conor Friedersdorf of
The Atlantic wrote, "If James O'Keefe respected the right-wing populists who make up the audience of Project Veritas... he would tell them the truth about all of the organizations that he targets. Instead, Project Veritas operates in bad faith, an attribute it demonstrated again this week in the aftermath of its bungled attempt to trick
The Washington Post."
[167] Noah Rothman of the conservative magazine
Commentary chastised O'Keefe for being exploitative of his audience: "No longer are institutions like Veritas dedicated to combating ignorance in their audience. They're actively courting it."
[168]
Jonathan Chait of
New York magazine said that O'Keefe, having set out prove that the
Post was fake news, ended up disproving it. O'Keefe's plot collapsed because it was premised on a ludicrously false worldview, wrote Chait. "The Washington Post does not, in fact, publish unverified accusations just because they're against Republicans." O'Keefe's attempts to prove rampant voter fraud have failed "because voter fraud is not rampant."
[169]