ACORN Takedown Campaign Overblown, Misguided

The conservative campaign against ACORN—which has now, thanks to a few video “sting” operations, lost its federal funding—is built on an outrageous set of exaggerations and falsehoods, writes Joe Conason for Salon. “No doubt it was fun to dupe a few morons into providing tax advice to a ‘pimp and ho,’ but what ACORN actually does, every day, is help struggling families.”

Claims that ACORN perpetrated massive voter fraud are likewise ridiculous. Only a handful of workers falsified registrations—in 2004, for example, six workers faked fewer than 24 registrations, out of more than a million registered that cycle. Judging the whole organization on the actions of a few workers is like condemning the Republican Party for the actions of, say, prostitute clients David Vitter and Ken Calvert. “Nobody is cutting off their federal funding,” Conason observes.