Who Killed ACORN Probe?

The Sunday Washington Times ran my op-ed about House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers’s (D-Michigan) decision to drop plans for a probe of ACORN.

Here is the top of it:

Who told House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Michigan Democrat, to lay off the radical activist group ACORN?

The 23-term congressman, who has been enamored of the aggressively partisan group for years, gave a truly odd explanation last week when he reaffirmed a May 4 statement that a probe of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) “appears unwarranted at this time.”

“The powers that be decided against it,” he said Wednesday, refusing to elaborate. His spokesman Jonathan Godfrey later said Mr. Conyers was referring to himself as “the powers that be.” Unless you believe that “the powers that be” is a novel variation of the editorial “we,” it’s clear Mr. Conyers wasn’t referring to himself and that somebody “got” to him. […]

For space reasons I took out a reference to the fact that on Friday I sought a fresh quote from Conyers spokesman Jonathan Godfrey. He declined to provide one citing the fact that he had already provided his explanation to the Washington Times earlier in the week.