In creativity, the ACORN boss’s denials were matched only by her assignments of blame. She blamed her predecessor: “I don’t think it’s fair to judge me, as I’m cleaning up a previous administration.” She blamed the powerful: “We’ve seen this play before, whether it was the civil rights movement or whatever, when you organize poor people to have real power, what you do is often turned against you.” And most of all, she blamed Republicans: “The RNC . . . because we’ve been inflated as the boogeyman, raises almost $2 million a day, every day, and this form of modern-day ACORN McCarthyism has got to stop.”

Assigned only a minor role in this orgy of blame were ACORN and Lewis herself…

But none of ACORN’s foes could have landed their blows if the group hadn’t made itself vulnerable — a truth Lewis couldn’t quite grasp in her hour at the press club. “We believed if you did the right thing you would get credit for the right thing,” she said, “but boy, oh, boy, did we learn differently.”

The learning, evidently, continues.