And Lewis wasn't alone in self-protection mode. When the first video dropped, a blog on National Public Radio's Web site excused crimes as part and parcel of the plight of the community organizer: "It's also important to keep in mind that ACORN's workers are coming from the same low-income neighborhoods the organization serves, with all that entails -- poor schools, high crime and the sorts of social problems that have been documented for decades." The post continued: "So the flaws conservatives are pointing out about ACORN are not so much problems associated with that organization per se but more about the problems of being poor and minority in urban America." Don't blame them, in other words. They can't help themselves, they're poor people.
And herein lies the deeper scandal -- it's not just the denial of what is right in front of your face, it's denial of a bad mode of operating, of a sickness in policy and philosophy. For as much as the right is attacked for being dismissive of the poor and most vulnerable, the left clutches that which continues the plight of government dependence among so many.
ACORN is wedded to stale thinking that all too often makes people dependent, crushes responsibility, creativity and our very natures. And the Obama administration only plans to continue to increase welfare spending, ensuring that the system that gave birth to ACORN and its inexcusable conduct will continue to thrive.
That NPR item began with the announcement that the "'ACORN versus conservatives' contest of wills is beginning to look like some new version of the Cold War with either side claiming the other is evil and vowing to never give in until it prevails." There's something to that observation, actually. These tea parties, best sellers about liberty and tyranny and liberal fascism, they're about something: they're about ideas. Most of all, they're about preserving that which makes America exceptional.