Academic

NEW YORK TIMES: Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn, Favored Foe. ?For months during last year?s?

By Glenn Reynolds

NEW YORK TIMES: Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn, Favored Foe. “For months during last year?s presidential race, conservatives sought to tar the Obama campaign with accusations of voter fraud and other transgressions by the national community organizing group Acorn, which had done some work for the campaign. But it took amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and a pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to Acorn offices, to send government officials scrambling in recent days to sever ties with the organization. Conservative advocates and broadcasters were gleeful about the success of the tactics in exposing Acorn workers, who appeared to blithely encourage prostitution and tax evasion. It was, in effect, the latest scalp claimed by those on the right who have made no secret of their hope to weaken the Obama administration by attacking allies and appointees they view as leftist.”

One slight correction: It took amateur actors . . . to do the work the press should have done during the campaign.

And you have to love this: “Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America?s Future, called the tactics used to go after Mr. Jones and Acorn ‘McCarthyite,’ and said the critics were harping on minor failings.”

Yeah, it’s exactly the same. Heck, compared to Joe McCarthy’s famous pimp disguise, this kid’s an amateur. And that Borosage thinks support for child-sex slavery is a “minor failing” says more about Borosage than anyone else . . . .

But kudos to the Times for a story that’s surprisingly complete and fair — though perhaps it deserved more prominent placement than page A14. Ya know?

UPDATE: Fox News posts full, unedited video of sting on ACORN San Bernardino. In response to claims that it was unfairly edited.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on September 16, 2009 (boomark / email).