by publius

Following up on Eric's post, I just read this very insightful Q & A with Rick Perlstein (author of Nixonland, Before the Storm) on ACORN. It's about the best analysis I've seen. The upshot, according to Perlstein, is that ACORN is a largely manufactured crisis.

A few employees at an extremely marginal organization that does many good things got caught doing some very bad things. The sound machine then preyed upon liberal journalists' guilt, and got them to treat it like a huge scandal that is somehow relevant to the White House. Here's Perlstein:

I mean, why would a newspaper like the Post be training its investigative focus on ACORN now? Whether you think well or ill of ACORN, they’re a very marginal group in the grand scheme of things—and about as tied to the White House as the PTA. The real story is that millions of Americans don’t consider a liberal president legitimate, and they’re moving from that axiom to try to delegitimize the president in the eyes of the majority. And one of the ways they do that is, frankly, by baiting the hook for mainstream media decision-makers who are terrified at the accusation of liberal bias.

He goes on to explain why the initial anti-ACORN outcry in 2008 was manufactured as well. As they say, read the whole thing.