ACORN, a cautionary tale

Reading these stories, you didn’t need to be familiar with not for profit governance issues to recognize a profoundly compromised organization; you only needed to be awake. But ACORN supporters probably told themselves that thefts and cover-ups by the leadership were relatively minor governance problems that did not and would not hamper or corrupt ACORN’s substantive work. That’s how ACLU supporters frequently responded to compelling evidence of internal misconduct: characterizing repeated malfeasance as a series of “mistakes,” they tended to dismiss as “tempests in teapots” or “inside baseball,” controversies over “mistakes” like lying by the leadership or spying on staff or revelations that the executive director had quietly approved a government blacklisting agreement and, when he was caught, misrepresented the timing and substance of counsel’s opinion regarding the agreement and the ACLU’s potential criminal liability for non-compliance. So I recognize the evasions and denials offered by ACORN supporters in the wake of the very serious embezzlement and cover-up scandals of 2008 that presaged the current scandal over the video sting…

Today, ACORN apologists persist in trivializing its offenses: The video sting is not a major story, mediamatters.org insists, suggesting that the real story is – what else – right wing scapegoating and “fear-mongering.” Founder Wade Rathke still seems filled with sorrow, not remorse, noting that the “sneak films are too sad and painful for me to watch.” ACORN is suing the video-tapers and distributors for violating state surveillance laws…

Whether or not ACORN recovers, this crisis of its own making should serve as a cautionary tale for other groups, like the ACLU, that consider themselves too pure to fail; but I doubt that it will. Lying is a habit that’s very hard to break, especially when people justify their lies in the service of a greater good.