The upcoming Fox News specials on ACORN

By Michael Gaynor

"ACORN is eligible for untold millions more in taxpayer funds from the trillion-dollar stimulus package that President Obama signed into law in February 2009 and the $6 billion National Service Act passed the following month."

This week Glenn Beck is on vacation, but Bill O'Reilly will be reporting on ACORN and Obamacare.

More importantly, expect a Fox News special on ACORN after Congress returns from its summer vacation.

That was signaled back on July 1, 2009 by Charles Norcross, chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Association, when he appeared on "Beck" and "discussed ACORN, its role in the Minnesota Senate Race, and RNLA's comprehensive efforts to expose the truth on the organization's activities" (to quote the notice of that appearance on the RNLA website, www.rnla.org).

The RNLA press page currently announces: "The RNLA Press Page Has Been Temporarily Rededicated to Efforts to Expose the Truth on ACORN."

That's helpful to a vital cause, but many more people watch Fox News than check the RNLA website.

As with the Duke lacrosse "no rape" case, a blockbuster expose takes some time and will attract more viewers after the dog days of summer have passed.

But how special will that special will be?

It should be a thorough expose, not tailored to protect anyone.

In "The Duke Case Is a DEMOCRAT scandal" (October 18, 2006), I wrote: "'60 Minutes' never mentioned during its two-part segment on the Duke case broadcast last Sunday night that the Duke case is a Democrat scandal."

Given liberal media bias, that was unsurprising.

ACORN is a Far Left Democrat scandal (as I explained in "The ACORN Scandal IS Partisan, Glenn Beck," dated August 4, 2009).

Will Fox News give a pass to President Obama, as The New York Times and ABC shamelessly did last fall, or will Fox News boldly tell all, as it should (especially since Fox contributor Michelle Malkin has made it easy)?

That may depend on (1) whether Fox viewers demand the whole truth and (2) the success or lack of success of the current campaign by Obama supporters against Glenn Beck.

Beck is "imperfect," as he publicly acknowledges, and I have criticized him for his buffoonery, his failure to give due credit to brave ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief and his gullibility with respect to the ACORN 8, but Beck deserves support against those who have pressured his sponsors to abandon him.

Bill O'Reilly, "the King of Cable News" and a self-described "bold, fresh piece of humanity," celebrated last April Fool's Day by playing a voicemail left for Ms. MonCrief by New York Times national correspondent Stephanie Strom explaining that she (Ms. Strom) had been ordered to stop pursuing an Obama/ACORN expose and later interviewed Ms. MonCrief (now an ex-liberal who stated on "The O'Reilly Factor" that ACORN has been "an unofficial arm of the Democratic Party" for years.

When it comes to exposing the Obama/ACORN connection, "the King" is no Glenn Beck, much less a Michelle Malkin. (He went publicly silent soon after New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt publicly chastised him for editing that voicemail without disclosing it.)

Beck has not steered clear of personal criticism of President Obama, as O'Reilly has. That is to his credit (although his criticism should not been expressed much more substantively and artfully).

Beck is right that President Obama deserves harsh criticism and is to applauded for not drinking the Obama Kool-aid.

Fact: Then presidential candidate Obama lied about his relationship to ACORN in the last presidential debate. Beck has learned much about ACORN this year (although he has more to learn about the ACORN 8) and he would be well advised to focus on that when he returns to the air from his own vacation on August 24.

Hopefully, Beck has a copy of Ms. Malkin's number 1 best seller, Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies."

Beck should pour over the chapter (8) on ACORN, titled "OBAMACORN: A COMMUNITY OF ORGANIZED RACKETEERS NATIONWIDE" (including the notes).

Ms. Malkin very effectively highlighted the Obama connection (as well as gratefully gave due credit to Ms. MonCrief).

Ms. Malkin described Obama as "the community organizer-in-chief who cut his teeth as a street activist working with ACORN and its inextricably linked SEIU allies in Chicago' and set forth this excerpt from an Obama statement after ACORN's political action committee endorsed his presidential candidacy in February 2008: "I come out of a grassroots organizing background. That's what I did for three and half years before I went to law school. That's the reason I moved to Chicago was to organize. So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it. I've been fighting alongside on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work."

Ms. Malkin explained how Obama had courted ACORN's endorsement.

Ms. Malkin: "...President Obama guaranteed these government-subsidized political operatives a seat at his table of power. 'Before I even get inaugurated, during the transition, we're going to be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda,' Obama promised ACORN activists at a December 2007 Democratic presidential rally. 'We're going to be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda of the next presidency of the united States of America.'"

Ms. Malkin added that "the mainstream media, continuing a decades-old pattern of whitewashing the radical left-wing outfit's activities, failed to report the unvarnished truth about ACOTN's racketeers in Baltimore" (and then did precise what the mainstream media had not done, provide 'the facts."

Ms. Malkin: "Despite his numerous on-the-record remarks tying himself to ACORN over the years, candidate Obama asserted on its 'Fight the Smears' campaign website that he 'never organized with ACORN." According to ACORN, however, Obama trained its Chicago members in leadership seminars; in turn, ACORN volunteers worked on his campaigns. Obama also sat on the boards of the left-wing Woods Fund (with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers) and Joyce Foundation, both of which poured money into ACORN's coffers. ACORN head Maude Hurd gushed that Obama is the candidate who 'best understands and can affect change on the issues ACORN cares about' — like ensuring their massive government pipeline to your hard-earned money."

Ms. Malkin further reported that Obama's election has been great for ACORN:

"ACORN is eligible for untold millions more in taxpayer funds from the trillion-dollar stimulus package that President Obama signed into law in February 2009 and the $6 billion National Service Act passed the following month."

"In March 2009, the Obama White House made good on its promise to give ACORN a hand in shaping the administration's agenda when it designated the group an official partner of the U.S. Census Bureau. President Obama has entrusted ACORN — infamous for voter fraud scandals spanning more than [a] decade — to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States. At first, the administration denied that ACORN would play a substantial role in the census process. But documents obtained by Washington, D.C.-based watchdog Judicial Watch revealed in May 2009 'that the Census Bureau offered ACORN the opportunity to "recruit Census workers" who would participate in the count. Moreover, as an "executive level" partner, ACORN has the ability to "organize and/or serve as a member on a Complete Count Committee," which, according to Census documents, helps "develop and implement locally based outreach and recruitment campaigns"'"

O'Reilly erroneously assured "Factor" viewers that ACORN's census involvement would not be substantial.

He should read Ms. Malkin's book too!

Ms. Malkin also reported that "Obama's campaign was forced to admit in the summer of 2008 that it had filed misleading financial reports on its dealings with ACORN's get-out-the-vote arms, Citizens Service, Inc."

Ms. Malkin refuted the "run-of-the-mill clerical errors" explanation, stating in part: "...there's much more to the story of Obama's amended campaign reports than Team Obama let on. CSI appears to have been a front to funnel payments to ACORN for campaign advance work."

In addition, Ms. Malkin refuted the Obama claim that Project Vote and ACORN were separate.

Ms. Malkin: "ACORN's own internal review of shady money transfers among its web of affiliates underscores the concern [about "another left-wing slush fund for Democrat satellites exploiting non-profit status and skirting campaign finance laws]. A June 2008 report by lawyer Elizabeth Kingsley raised red flags about the incestuous relationship between ACORN and Project Vote — the offshoot Barack Obama worked for and insisted was completely separate from... ACORN."

Undeceived, Ms. Malkin put it this way: "Despite his adamant denials of any association [ACORN] ..., Obama's political DNA is encoded with the ACORN agenda."

Ms. Malkin in her acknowledgement cited one whistleblower for "special thanks," Ms. MonCrief, based on "her enormous courage and vigilance on ACORN corruption."

In her "Obamacorn" chapter, Ms. Malkin reported that Ms. MonCrief not only was "primary source for the rare investigative forays by the New York Times into ACORN's fraudulent empire," but also detailed her testimony about ACORN in a Pennsylvania case last October, including revelation that "[i]n November of 2007, ACORN's Project Vote development director Karyn Gillette told her that Gillette had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists" and that she (Ms. MonCrief) was given a spreadsheet to use in cultivating Obama donors who had maxed out on donations to the candidate, but who could contribute to voter registration efforts," and Congressional testimony in March 2009 based on Ms. MonCrief's disclosures about ACORN's "Muscle for the Money" programs.

Ms. MonCrief has proof that The New York Times killed an Obama/ACORN expose on October 21, 2008 (a voicemail is very good proof and the preceding email is very illuminating), so Ms. Malkin scathingly ridiculed New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt's "tip that didn't pan out" excuse.

Ms. Malkin: "Hoyt airily dismissed the charges by...MonCrief as 'nonsense' and quoted a Times editor who shrugged, 'You have to cut bait after a while.' It was an all-too-convenient judgment that just happened to be made as Election Day loomed. (Contrast this with the editorial doggedness of the Times's editors in pursuing and publishing the Star magazine-quality insinuations that GOP presidential candidate John McCain had carried on an affair with Washington lobbyist Vicki Iseman.) Hoyt attempted to paint MonCrief as an unreliable source. But Times reporter Stephanie Strom had happily relied on her for months to break a series of ACORN corruption stories. And e-mail messages from Strom show not only the New York Times reporter's repeated praise and gratitude for MonCrief's information, but also her concurrence with MonCrief's assessment of the vast, money-funneling ACORN enterprise."

Will the Fox News special provide "the unvarnished truth" about Obama and ACORN, or will the decision of sponsors to stop advertising on "Beck" result in a limited expose?

Let Fox News know your preference!

Full disclosure: I first reported that The New York Times had killed what it feared might be a game-changing Obama/ACORN expose on October 22, 2008 and Ms. Malkin's acknowledgements included "special thanks" to me (and Matthew Vadum) "for ...foresight and insight in reporting on the story when no one else would."

© Michael Gaynor