Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander at the Center of the Hypocrisy on ACORN

25 Republicans who voted to defund government contractor ACORN opposed contractor reform in 2006 when Democrats attempted simply to eliminate fraud and to open up the contractor selection process to companies beyond the defrauding hooligans at Halliburton. One of those GOP Senators is Lamar Alexander. An accomplice in 2006, Tennessee's senior Senator is obviously 2008's high horse; although given the relatively minuscule cost of the ACORN contract, the horse is an easy ride. The shallow GOP base are suckers for cheap righteousness.

Defunding Double Standards

Jeremy Scahill on ACORN, Blackwater, and Barack Obama:

Perhaps one of the most jarring comparisons here is the fact that ACORN is now being attacked while the Obama administration continues to contract with Blackwater, the favorite mercenary company of the Bush administration, which is headed by Erik Prince, who was a major donor to Republican causes and campaigns, including those of some of the Defund ACORN bill’s sponsors, including Indiana Republican Mike Pence, one of the key figures in hunting down Van Jones.

The Post-Election Function of Pre-Election ACORN Attacks: To Cripple Progressive Governance

The Republican attempts to suppress voter turnout are not new or unique to the McCain/Palin campaign. They are nearly 30-years-old and perennially based on lies:

GOP ACORN Hate Sprouts Vandalism and Threats Against Individual ACORN Staffers

ACORN--a community-based organization made up of mostly African and Hispanic Americans already the target of John McCain's and Sarah Palin's abusive campaign vitriol with minuscule evidence--has now started coming under literal attack by McCain/Palin supporters. McClatchy reports that ACORN staffers have received death threats, including one Rhode Island woman who received the message, "We know you get off work at 9," followed by racial epithets. ACORN offices in Seattle and Boston have been vandalized and computers stolen.

Reports of people being assaulted and being threatened with assault for opposing McCain/Palin are increasing. At some point, John McCain is going to have to do something more significant than saying "No, ma'am. No ma'am," to someone who acts loony and calls Obama an "Arab." Innocent people are going to get hurt if McCain doesn't take the edge off his rhetoric that has little just cause.

Bush DOJ to Repeat Pre-Election ACORN Mugging?

The other day I wrote that Republican attacks on ACORN had two purposes. On second thought I believe it has a third: to begin the Republican post-election campaign to cripple Obama's West Wing should he win on Nov. 4. The Clinton years showed that Republicans are not above using any means necessary to hog tie a Democratic President.

Having said that, it is worth noting that George Bush may be moving to assist the McCain campaign by using the Department of Justice for partisan ends:

So now we hear leaked word that the FBI is beginning an investigation into whether ACORN "helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election" and where there is "any evidence of a coordinated national scam."

Let's note a few points. DC Republicans have been aggressively lobbying the DOJ to open an investigation into ACORN in advance of the election. And leaking word of such an investigation (possibly starting the investigation at all) most likely violates DOJ guidelines about DOJ/FBI actions which can end up interfering with or manipulating an election.

But, remember, this is right out of the book of the Bush Justice Department's efforts to assist in GOP voter suppression efforts in the 2004 and 2006 elections (part and parcel of the US Attorney firing story). This is the same scam US Attorney firing player Bradley Schlozman got in trouble for pulling with ACORN just before the 2006 election. And before he got canned, Gonzales helped revise and soften the departmental prohibition on DOJ announcements, thus making it easier to play these kinds of games.

This is a big deal. It may be their last gasp to use the DOJ to help mitigate the scale of Republican defeat on November 4th.

TPM posted footage of telling 2007 testimony by a Bush DOJ official who prosecuted ACORN workers just before the 2006 elections even though his department's manual directs otherwise:

ACORN Founder Exposes Connections between GOP Election Tactics and US Attorney Firings

ACORN's founder and former chief organizer, who has an essay due out in a Vanderbilt Press publication, connects the dots at his blog between Republican attempts to manipulate the 2004 elections, Manipulation 2.0 in 2008, and the Alberto Gonzales U.S. Attorney firings. ACORN is always the scapegoat the GOP ties to the pre-election whipping post without just cause, although AG Gonzales' departure has to be some sweet revenge:

Last [election] cycle the RNC in the 11th hour orchestrated filings attacking ACORN through coordinated complaints filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Nothing came of these matters and all of them were dismissed as groundless after the election, but that is hardly important in looking at the political equation. The point for the RNC then (and now) is whether or not they could stir up enough dust clouds to energize their party faithful and confuse the moderates sufficiently. All of this in states like New Mexico and Missouri famously led to the political hatchet job firings of US Attorneys in those states for not joining the attack on ACORN and eventually to the resignation of Attorney General (and Bush crony) Gonzales for allowing the wholesale politicization of the Justice Department.

This is merely a second verse to the same song.

Nevada registration moves solidly to the Democratic column and not surprisingly there is a raid on an ACORN office in Las Vegas ostensibly looking for evidence of some kind of conspiracy to commit “voter fraud.” No charges have been filed. This is hardball politics, my friends, little more.

The other flashpoints and accusations around ACORN have followed exactly the same pattern with accusations, press calls, and the like in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, New Mexico, and elsewhere, all of which are battlegrounds and seeing huge Democratic registration gains.

A lone voice from officials in Colorado was interesting recently as they admitted that they had had no problem working successfully with ACORN and ACORN’s registration people. Of course the officials were not partisans in this big fight, so they were “just the facts” folks. There are not many of them left. Colorado may have also slipped more firmly into the Obama camp ending the monolithic Western vote for Republican presidential candidates for almost a generation.

One wonders why McCain supporters would want to stick their necks out to attack ACORN, since scapegoating tends to come back and bite ACORN opponents eventually.

Mean Girl Worse Than Cheney

Sarah Palin lies about "voter fraud" in Pennsylvania and elsewhere:

The charges involve "voter registration fraud," not voter fraud. Just because someone turns in a "Mickey Mouse" or "Tony Romo" card to get paid does not mean that either the cartoon character or the quarterback will actually show up to vote.

That Palin would charge ACORN with voter fraud amounts to slander, especially when the issue is "voter registration fraud" and as ACORN has been turning in fraudulent registration cards. The fact that we are hearing about fraudulent registration means that the safeguards seem to be working, so why smear ACORN if they're doing their duty?

Local GOP blogger Bob Krumm is not just on Palin's erroneous page, but also claims "proof" of ACORN "vote fraud." Note to Bob Krumm: ACORN has not only won a lawsuit that charged them with voter fraud in the past, but it also won a counterclaim against the libel and slander perpetrated against it.

McCain Told ACORN That They Make America Special

Marc Ambinder posts this video of John McCain standing with ACORN in 2006 and telling them that they "make America special":

His current attacks make those statements look cynical coming from a candidate who is now down and desperate to win the White House.

Fox News Repeated "ACORN" Nearly 350 Times over the Weekend

It's no wonder local right-wing bloggers are catatonically repeating ACORN. Fox Noise ginned their side of the blogosphere up last weekend:

ACORN in Perspective

The right-wing blogosphere is shamefully guilty of protesting way too much:

In the world of scandals, ACORN's missteps don't even register on the radar compared with the swindles perpetrated by top executives at Halliburton, Enron, WorldCom, Countrywide, and other major corporations who ripped off the government, stockholders, and consumers of billions of dollars. But progressive groups have to be squeaky clean. They must live by a higher standard, in part because they are constantly under scrutiny by powerful business and government officials and in part, because they depend on the good will of funders (who typically get federal tax breaks for their donations) and low-income members (who sacrifice to pay ACORN dues).

Bobbed Story on Reform Org Is Krummy

It is interesting what lengths a local GOP blogger will go to argue points based on only partial truths about Barack Obama's legal advocacy of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). One would think--and quite preposterously so--that Obama's legal representation itself lead to the mortgage crisis:

Barack Obama was a lawyer working on behalf of ACORN, yes that ACORN, the organization that orchestrated this case and hundreds of others like it, all of them alleging that racism was the sole reason that minority home ownership lagged.

Quite a bit of broader context left out of those claims. Here's what Bob did not tell you:

For starters – and I know this will shock you – the McCain people can’t even get their facts straight. In a ... conference call, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said that Obama, as an attorney, once represented ACORN in a lawsuit “against the state of Illinois and the federal government.” (Thereby implying, of course, that Obama was in cahoots with anti-government law-breakers.) But Davis’ dark fantasies collide with factual reality. Obama did indeed represent ACORN in a lawsuit, back in 1995 – working on the same side as the federal government. ACORN and the feds, along with radical plaintiffs such as the League of Women Voters, went to court to compel the state of Illinois to implement a new “motor voter” law that was designed to make it easier for citizens to enroll as voters. They won.

In parroting the McCain campaign, Bob refuses to acknowledge all of the conditions surrounding Barack Obama's professional relationship to ACORN. That's because the less he says above and beyond wild accusation, the better for his candidates' campaign. Maybe Bob Krumm wants to engage in an unprincipled inquisition against the League of Women Voters, too?

In the particular case he cites--as in each of the handful of voter registration malfeasance out of millions of voters registered that conservatives attribute to ACORN's organization--he fails to acknowledge that ACORN monitors for voter registration fraud and supports the prosecution of accused defrauders who have worked for ACORN. Many states require that voter registration cards be turned in, and fraudulent cards are discovered because ACORN calls states' attention to them. However, in any endeavor, intention is not enough and exceptions will fall through the cracks.

But to argue that a organization-wide conspiracy can be deduced from a few exceptions is both logical fallacy and an utter stretch to a lunatic fringe of conservativism:

ACORN would need to be aware of every fraudulent form that's been submitted, the names and polling places of those false identities, and they would then have to have a network of thousands of voters nationwide whom they could readily (yet covertly) communicate this information to, so that those voters would show up to cast their fraudulent vote on election day. Given the possible prison time anyone who actually attempted to cast a fraudulent vote would face, it seems unlikely that they could find thousands upon thousands of voters to help in this effort in the first place, much less communicate the relevant information to them.

As for tarring the entire ACORN organization for the malfeasance of a few employees, Think Progress has the best rejoinder:

When a department store calls the police to report a shoplifting employee, no one says the department store is guilty of consumer fraud. The same principle applies here. The small number of staffers who have submitted fraudulent forms are violating ACORN’s mission. Anyone caught defrauding should be prosecuted, and ACORN says it is assisting in that effort. ACORN should work harder to catch these employees and ensure that they are held responsible.

You will not see any of that balance in Bob Krumm's biased narrative of these events. That's because his focus would seem to be strictly on helping McCain win, if necessary, by any means.

First They Came for ACORN, But I Did Not Speak Out, And Then They Came for Me

Attacking minority-run organizations is the only hope, the last gasp that the GOP and their blogging shock troops have left. And some local right-wing bloggers are acting high and mighty like their latest battle is a noble fight for a just cause.

But the recent attacks on ACORN were never about principle. If they would have been about principle, you would have seen enduring criticism (like that from liberal and community-based groups) not prone to the ebb and flow with the election season (like Bob Krumm). It is about partisan politics pure and simple (the fact that Bill Hobbs is locked on ACORN evinces that point alone). It is nothing more than aped election strategy with a cosmetic moralism applied. John McCain's supporters have no lanyard to fasten his opponent to our current economic crisis, and they have no legitimate means of defending McCain's own history as a "deregulator" or his membership in the previous Keating 5 banking crisis.

Hence, attacking ACORN has three tactical purposes: to draw attention away from the purging of voters in various states, to take organized black and brown voters out of the equation, and to draw McCain closer in the polls in order to resurrect the hair's breath Republican win scenarios of 2000 and 2004. Republicans cannot win without without maximizing the great white vote, so they must peel off minority votes and suppress voter registration. The groups who orchestrate the purging of voter registration polls are mostly (if not all) white, and the groups who register as many people as eligible to vote are largely minority. Hence, their last ditch attacks are always going to be race-based, just like the Willie Horton-attack on Mike Dukakis in 1988.

There is one simple solution to the Republican election strategy: taking anyone who stands in their way out of the equation. The problem is that they would not stop with ACORN:

for all people who consider themselves to be progressive, let's be clear: The current right wing attack on ACORN is a frontal assault on all of us who fight for social and economic justice. ACORN may not always behave in the activist sandbox, but they are one of us, and we better close ranks around them, because the barrel of the right-wing attack gun will be focused on you and me next ....

For instance, over the last few weeks, the right wing has blanketed media airspace with the idea that the Community Reinvestment Act, as aggressively promulgated by ACORN over the past few decades, forced banks to lower their lending criteria, which led to the subprime crisis ....

Implicated are all the rest of us who have used the CRA, the only government edict against bank redlining, to own up to their obligations to lend in neighborhoods of color and low-income areas. Not only is this argument against the CRA and ACORN breath-takingly wrong – most subprime lenders were not even covered by the CRA - but it goes far to make the racist suggestion that the very people that ACORN represents – people of color, low income areas – are inherently high risk and unworthy of credit ....

As a progressive community, we have an obligation to call out ACORN on their stuff. God knows I have. But we also have an obligation to stick up for one of the most effective grassroots social justice organizations this nation has ever seen, an organization that stands on the frontlines everyday, taking body blows for all of us.

In support of the Republican effort, conservative bloggers are willing to conduct a scorched-earth policy to secure the road to the White House, wiping out every opponent to achieve their ends. If a critical mass of us fail to support the forward guard catching the brunt of right-wing prejudice and treachery, then they'll be targeting the rest of us next.