ACORN

I did not want to admit it, but facts are facts: ACORN has become a criminal organization. The following video comes from CNN, which many consider biased in favor of Obama:



Why did the Obama campaign give $836,000 to ACORN using fraudulent claims that the organization was providing "sound system" services? How can anyone possibly justify that behavior as being on the up-and-up?

On the so-called "Fight the Smears" section of Obama's web site the following claims were made:

The Obama Campaign claims that Barack was never an ACORN trainer and that he was not associated with ACORN in 1992:

• Fact: Barack was never an ACORN community organizer.
• Fact: Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.
• Fact: ACORN was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive Barack ran in 1992

Just how factual are these "facts"?

"Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity." That's a lie; it is well-known that Obama represented ACORN in a legal case. What is less well-known is this:

"Obama took the case, known as ACORN vs. Edgar (the name of the Republican governor at the time) and we won. Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that year. Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5,000 of them).

Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends."

So: ACORN was indeed part of Project VOTE. Strike down Fact 3. Obama represented ACORN as a lawyer and led training sessions. Strike down Fact 2. Those training sessions also count as a strike against Fact 1.

I'm particularly bothered by Brad Friedman's continuing defense of ACORN. The offenses outlined in CNN's investigation speak to a systemic attempt to game the election. I once accepted the excuse that individual ACORN volunteers, motivated by financial gain, sent in improper registrations. But that explanation no longer works.

Brad asks: "Perhaps the ACORN 'Voter Fraud' is Hiding with the WMD?..."

No, Brad -- ACORN's criminality is as obvious as your partisanship. (Note that the oft-cited election fraud expert refuses to addresses any of the problems outlined in CNN's investigation.) And please spare us your oft-heard declaration that membership in the Green party places you above the Democratic-Republican fray. Let's deal in facts, Brad: You make money from your site, and your readers are mostly progs. If you stop telling them what they want to hear, you'll no longer be given exposure in The Guardian or on Air America. You won't be asked to fill in for the vile Randi Rhodes. Your progressive readers will desert you. You will no longer be able to make a career of your cause. You'll have to start filling out employment applications at the many fast food restaurants around Hollywood. That's why you never expressed on your site the disgust you felt when the Kossacks engaged in hyperbolic bashing of Hillary Clinton.