The Long Reach of Dead ACORN

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

08 November 13

ne of the underappreciated sellouts of your modern Democratic party - and they are many and varied - occurred in 2009 when, armed with a freshly elected president and majorities in both houses of the Congress, and acting in the face of artificial outrage ginned up on the right through the use of manufactured evidence produced by a vicious little ratfker, the Democrats boldly used their legislative majorities to cut off congressional funding for ACORN, a longstanding network of neighborhood groups that, among other things, was indispensible in getting people to register to vote. (Did the courtier press, which generally prefers its politics to occur only in nice white marble buildings with pretty statues of famous people, go along for the ride? Why even ask the question?) The White House, of course, bought the selectivelt edited tapes entirely and scrambled to assuage the injured fee-fees of the people who want to burn the president in effigy in Lafayette Park.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday said the conduct seen on the tapes "is completely unacceptable." He said the Obama administration "takes accountability extremely seriously" and noted that the Census Bureau had determined that ACORN could not meet its goal for conducting a fair and accurate count next year.

(Having proven his Beltway bona fides, Gibbs has moved on to a seat as one of MSNBC's 9875 "political contributors.")

The bill passed the Senate - which had, as it does today, a Democratic majority - 83-7. It effectively killed ACORN as an entity. This, of course, was another slap by the Democratic party - like the General "Betrayus" controversy regarding MoveOn - against some of its more effective outside activist groups and it was supposed to immunize the party against charges of "extremism" and lay the issue to rest. All it proved was that the congressional leaders of the Democratic party didn't watch anywhere near enough Roadrunner cartoons as children.

The ACME Democratic Party.

What it did was create a permanent imaginary bogeyman - ACORRRRRNNNNNN!!!!! Run and hide! - for the Republicans to use as a scary beast whenever they want to. Hell, the House voted to defund ACORN again last July, despite the fact that the organization doesn't, you know, exist any more. And now, as the effort to demolish the Affordable Care Act moves to a new and more serious phase, in which the strategy will be not to defund or repeal the law, but to whittle it down piecemeal until it simply cannot function, the latest tactic is to ruin the credibility of the "navigators" who will help people thought the process of applying for health-insurance. And, glorioski, guess what organization - which currently is off the twig, having kicked the bucket, shrugged off this mortal coil and joined the bleeding choir invisibule - is getting some run as a reason to delay the full implementation of health-care reform?

On the Senate floor yesterday, Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) took this to an almost comical level. "We've already heard anecdotal reports about Obamacare navigators, including a woman who had an outstanding arrest warrant at the time she was hired - along with former members of an organization known as ACORN, that's had its own share of problems with corruption and lawbreaking. "As I said a moment ago, these people will be allowed to collect some of the most sensitive personal information that we have as Americans."

Please explain to me now, slowly, and in small words that I can understand, what the Democratic party gained by kicking ACORN in the teeth so hard that it died? Did it prevent what happened in 2010, when the country elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic? No. Did it kill off ACORN? Well, yes, as an effective way to empower poor people to vote, but not as an effective spur to the fevered imaginations of the lunatic right. (Here's a two-rail shot of paranoia that combines ACORN with Scary Moooozlims!) In the long run this seems to me to have been a bit of a bad deal for Democrats. But, then again, my gifts at eleventy-dimensional chess are notoriously limited.

Charlie has been a working journalist since 1976. He is the author of four books, most recently "Idiot America." He lives near Boston with his wife but no longer his three children.