Getting ACORN's Back

ACORN has gone in a mere three weeks from a community organization to the most demonized group in America, yielding death threats and vandalism from the most deranged on the far right. We know that calling ACORN a threat to "the fabric of our democracy" is absolutely absurd; this is really about the longstanding GOP tactic of voter suppression. But with the conservative noise machine ramped up and this small community group left to defend themselves, the winds were blowing in a really bad direction. Until the Obama campaign stepped up.

Charging that the FBI probe of ACORN represents an “unholy alliance” between Republican operatives and potentially illegal conduct by law enforcement targeting voter fraud, the Obama campaign demanded Friday that the U.S. special prosecutor looking into the U.S. attorneys scandal investigate the matter.

General counsel Bob Bauer sent a letter to Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey charging that coordinated “misconduct” by McCain campaign representatives and GOP officials were relevant to the special prosecutor’s work, because the activities may relate to the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys in late 2006.

The letter requests that the special prosecutor’s inquiry “include a review of any involvement by Justice Dept. and White House officials in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign [and RNC's] systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud.”

The FBI investigation was really the last straw. And the campaign is absolutely correct to connect this to the US Attorneys scandal - it's precisely because certain prosecutors wouldn't indict anyone on bogus voter fraud cases that they were fired. This is all the same kind of politicization. As the former head of the Justice Department's Voting Rights division said yesterday, this is "a continuation of injecting DOJ into what has clearly become a political issue... That's really not the proper role for the DOJ, and why their policies counsel otherwise." You can read the Obama campaign's letter here.

Moreover, it's important for this to have happened. The Obama campaign coming to the aid of a cog in the progressive movement is very heartening. We have to stick together.