Organization Trends

Politico’s Ben Smith Still Doesn’t Get ACORN


Ben Smith of the Politico continues to be among the least insightful, least reliable of all inside-the-beltway reporters on the issue of ACORN.

Take his column yesterday on ACORN’s involvement in Occupy Wall Street.

Despite ample evidence of the participation of ACORN operatives in the movement, he accepts at face value the denials of longtime ACORN operatives who lie for a living. (ACORN’s deceitful ways are exhaustively documented in my book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.)

FoxNews.com exposed the involvement of New York Communities for Change (NYCC) in Occupy Wall Street. Soon after Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, accused NYCC of fraudulent fundraising practices. The allegation is that NYCC is raising money claiming the funds will be used to test for toxins such as PCBs in schools but that NYCC is instead funneling the money to Occupy Wall Street.

Smith asked NYCC executive director Jon Kest, a longtime ACORN staffer, to explain what had happened, and of course Kest denied any wrongdoing. Despite several reports implicating NYCC in the developing scandal, Smith left it at that.

Smith asked Working Families Party (the party has long been part of the ACORN network) executive director Dan Cantor, a longtime ACORN operative, what happened, and of course Cantor denied any wrongdoing. Despite several reports including a well-publicized admission from WFP staffer Nelini Stamp that WFP has been part of Occupy Wall Street from the beginning, Smith didn’t press Cantor.

When Kest told Smith that “there is no ACORN,” Smith left it at that despite mountains of evidence that ACORN still exists under new names, as documented in my book Subversion Inc.

Smith pretty consistently pumps out propaganda piffle for Politico. He gives the proven liars of ACORN the benefit of the doubt.

He’s not a reporter; he’s a stenographer.

Matthew Vadum

The author of Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers (WND Books, 2011), Vadum, former senior vice president at CRC, writes and speaks widely…
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