Where there's smoke, there's fire

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, got busted yet again for potential voter fraud, this time in Missouri. Let's not forget that ACORN is also under investigation for more voter fraud in Nevada. In Nevada, ACORN volunteers apparently signed up to vote various members of the Dallas Cowboys.

ACORN is one of the most outspoken groups supporting the nomination of Barack Obama; in fact, when a mere attorney in Chicago, Obama represented ACORN, at ACORN's request, as part of a motor voter drive. Stanley Kurtz has an article on Obama's ties to ACORN, with an update from today here. While coming to no firm conclusions, noting that more investigation is needed, he does list some several interesting ties between Obama and ACORN. What is interesting is that in his article, Kurtz links to a magazine called "Social Policy" and specifically to an article called "Case Study: Chicago-The Barack Obama Campaign" dated October 2004. There are 24 articles listed in that edition, but there are 2 that are unavailable. One of them is the Case Study article, the second also deals with Chicago. This article is called "Towards A Chicago School of Youth Organizing." The full "Case Study" article can be found here. Why would Social Policy all of a sudden cut off access to these articles?

What is interesting about the second article is that it's written by a guy from the Woods Fund and how the Woods Funds held outreach meetings with various youth organizing groups. And where have I heard the Woods Fund from before? That's right, Barack Obama was on the Board of Directors, along with Bill Ayers. The Woods Fund, while Obama was on the Board, gave grant money to a number of organizations, including, ta da!, ACORN. Further research on Obama, the Woods Fund and ACORN can be found here in an article by Jennifer Rubin.

Let's also not forget about this Boston Globe article about Obama's ties to various failed housing projects in Chicago, including housing projects in his state Senate district that he advocated for and helped fund when on the Woods Fund (I find it odd that he was on the Board of Directors for the Woods Fund while he was in the Illinois state Senate). Obama instead, relies on his time-worn excuse: "Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times that the deterioration of Rezmar's buildings never came to his attention. He said he would have distanced himself from Rezko if he had known," even though, as the article continues, a local alderman was aware of these problems. In a Chicago Sun-Times article, it notes that the Woods Fund, while Obama was on the Board, helped fund his ex-boss on constructing a housing project for low income and elderly residents, similar to those other failed housing projects. And while he was in the state Senate, Obama wrote letters to get funding for other residential housing units for his ex-boss and Tony Rezko. A group of residents in one of the failed housing developments began to protest against Obama in his 2004 Senate run, noting "How didn't he know [about the housing problems]? Of course he knew. He just didn't care." Once again, Obama shows a shocking lack of judgment with who he associates with, an apparent cavalier attitude about the goings on in his district, and again says that he didn't know.

Of course, none of these associations with various left-wing, anti-american groups matters to many Obama supporters. As David Bernstein notes,

the elite liberal academic culture I've been referencing, violence on behalf of "revolutionary" goals is not only not shocking to many, it's often affirmatively romanticized, as with the ubiquitous Che t-shirts, and the inexplicable love affair many in the academy have with Fidel Castro. Again, it's not that Obama himself romanticizes such violence, but that he is a product of a culture in which being disturbed by a lack of remorse over the "revolutionary" violent actions of the Weathermen 30+ years later is just not on the cognitive map.

I mean, not only is it romanticized, but it's a fashion statement (according to the LA Times, "it shouldn't be a surprise that L.A. artist Shepard Fairey, in his design for a Sen. Barack Obama poster, looked to Korda's Che. Fairey's Obama is not wearing a beret, and he's looking left instead of right, but his face tilts at the same angle as Che's.").

It's quite breathtaking the length to which Obama will continue to deny any and all association between himself, Bill Ayers and ACORN when the paper trail (and money trail) all converge. This all seems like more than mere coincidence. I still don't understand how Obama can write letters asking for government funds for friends to construct low income housing, then a few years later through his position on the Woods Fund, gives more money to the same people for more housing projects, but then not know the status of the living conditions in still other housing projects he supported. There are a lot of questions that Obama has not adequately answered, and probably won't be forced to answer. And for some people, that's perfectly fine.