Obama Tries Ditching ACORN

Now that he’s settled into the White House, Barack Obama is shamelessly attempting to distance himself from the notoriously corrupt leftwing community group that helped him get elected. 

The scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), well known for voter fraud, embezzlement and cooking the books, endorsed Obama and fought hard to get him elected. Not surprising considering the taxpayer-funded group has strong Democratic Party ties (Howard Dean and Bill Clinton praise its activism) and Obama proudly worked for it as a community organizer in Chicago. 

In 2008 Obama’s presidential campaign paid ACORN more than $800,000 for services such as polling, advance work and staging major events. A Pittsburgh newspaper later reported that Obama covertly amended Federal Election Commission reports to say that the money went to so-called “get-out-the-vote” projects rather than the polling activities. The campaign responded to the article by claiming it had “mistakenly misrepresented” the services in federal reports. 

The close ties between Obama and ACORN are undeniable and well documented but lately the radical community group has become a publicity nightmare for the president and he conveniently wants the relationship to vanish, similar to the way he unsuccessfully tried to cut off his controversial, racially divisive longtime pastor and friend (Jeremiah Wright) during the presidential election.  

Recent ACORN highlights include a congressional investigation deeming it a criminal enterprise, countless voter registration fraud probes nationwide, the guilty plea of a high-ranking official for organizing a scheme that illegally paid workers (including “lazy crack heads”) to register voters, housing fraud and videotapes of ACORN employees advising a prostitute and pimp on how to skirt housing and tax laws. 

The scandals led the U.S. Census Bureau to eliminate ACORN as a community partner for the 2010 count, the Democratic-led Senate to recently cut its funding and California’s governor to call for an investigation of the group’s widespread fraud in his state. 

No wonder Obama wants to pretend he doesn’t have strong ties to ACORN. At this week’s White House press briefing, Obama’s trusted spokesman condemned the group’s conduct as "unacceptable" and assured the “administration takes accountability extremely seriously.” Oh, and he pointed out that previous administrations have given ACORN plenty of tax dollars. 

Speaking of, just a few months ago ACORN got multi billion-dollar infusion for “neighborhood stabilization activities” from Obama’s economic recovery bill that was supposed to create jobs and stimulate the faltering economy.