ACORN chief: Targeting a minority group with a prostitution sting is racist or something

The money quote: “I think that says a little bit about what Mr. O’Keefe thinks that a black and brown organization would go for.” Well, no. It says a lot about what O’Keefe and Giles think the public would go for, and they’ve been proved correct. A sting involving basic tax/mortgage fraud simply wouldn’t have colored the national imagination as vividly as a dorky kid dressed up like Huggy Bear escorting a three-quarters-naked 20-year-old into ACORN offices. Frankly, if not for the horrendous detail about child-sex-slave trafficking, the premise would have made for a killer Anthony Michael Hall vehicle circa 1985. If they chose this storyline because they thought it might hold some special appeal for ACORN, that almost certainly has more to do with class than race: Prostitution is usually a function of poverty so it stands to reason that they thought it might lend them extra credibility with a group that serves a low-income clientele. Besides, if O’Keefe and Giles really believed streetwalking is a “black thing,” wouldn’t they have hired a minority actress to play the prostitute?

No matter. It’s “shoot the messenger” time for Bertha Lewis — and for WaPo, which contents itself with shooting the messenger’s father instead. From today’s piece about the ACORN sting, your non sequitur of the year:

Giles did not respond to phone calls and requests through Townhall.com editor Jonathan Garthwaite for an interview. Her father, Doug Giles of the radical Clash Church in Miami, had complained of what he called the evils of the Obama administration and its alliance with ACORN.

In an online opinion piece last month, titled “What Obama’s Town Hall Charade and Pam Anderson’s Breasts Have in Common,” Doug Giles complained of Obama’s “rent-a-mobs” at a health care town hall in New Hampshire. He claimed Obama could “summon a cabal at the drop of a red fez,” including “ACORN lug nuts ready to register Mickey Mouse” to vote.

You’re not going to trust exhaustive documentary video evidence gathered by the daughter of a “radical,” are you?

The relevant bit here comes at around 1:30. Meanwhile, Boehner warns the base that defunding ACORN is hardly a done deal just yet. Because the House measure was attached to a bill that hasn’t passed the Senate, it could still be eliminated in conference committee. They’re going to push a standalone bill to match the one Mike Johanns pushed through the upper chamber to force it to Obama’s desk. Will Pelosi let it come to the floor?

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