As Congress slogged toward an appar ent financial-market rescue bill over the weekend, the time arrived for a closer look at the roots of the crisis.

Who were the culprits?

Many and varied.

But as Election Day grows ever nearer, the role of one candidate in particular stands out: that of Barack Obama.

As Stanley Kurtz details on the opposite page, Obama spent many years cultivating ties with, working with – and even funding – the very folks who pushed for the risky lending that underlies the current mess.

That is, “community organizer” groups like ACORN.

ACORN is especially noteworthy, not only because of its prominence in the drive to relax mortgage requirements, but also because of its shady tactics.

And its links to Obama.

Various ACORN chapters across the country, led by folks like Chicago’s Madeline Talbott, staged in-your-face protests in bank lobbies and filed complaints meant to hold up mergers sought by targeted banking firms.

Unless the banks agreed to ACORN’s terms – which many (understandably) did.

Talbott & Co. generally wanted them to ease down-payment requirements and ignore weak credit histories. And their intimidating tactics often necessitated police action, as at a ’97 protest at Pulaski Bank & Trust in Arkansas, where activists blocked drive-through lanes.

The movement’s biggest victory, of course, came when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up the riskier loans – providing fresh incentive for banks to make even more of them.

No need to recount where all that led.

Meanwhile, Obama was right there by ACORN’s side all along.

“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career,” he told the group last November.

Indeed, in the early ’90s, Obama was recruited by Talbott herself to run training sessions for ACORN activists.

ACORN also got funding from two charities, the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation, when Obama served on their boards, and from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge – the radical “education reform” outfit Obama ran from ’95 to ’99.

Ironically, the group stood to be a key beneficiary of the goodies Democrats were loading into Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s rescue plan – including one demand that 20 percent of any profits the feds make from reselling mortgage securities go to fund groups like ACORN.

Happily, that add-insult-to-injury bit appears to have been eliminated from the rescue bill – thanks essentially to Republican objections.

(In that context, it’s worth noting that John McCain worked for years to rein in Fannie and Freddie. Had Democrats not blocked action, the whole mortage mess might well have been avoided.)

Debate over the rescue plan begins in earnest today – and much disapprobation will be heaped on “Wall Street greed” as it proceeds.

Don’t be misled, though.

In the end, from a mighty ACORN an even mightier crisis did grow.

With Barack Obama‘s help.