by Stanley Kurtz, perhaps the most dogged investigator of President Obama’s checkered past, recalls to mind Mr. Obama’s past association with ACORN. It’s not pretty, but it ought to be required reading for those who persist in providing the president with the cover of “moderate” and “mainstream” labels.
There’s been a good deal of attention to ACORN of late, and deservedly so. Yet for all the fuss, what is arguably the most important Obama-ACORN tie of all has gotten short shrift. During the 2008 election, Obama’s close links to the far-left New Party were revealed and explored (although not by the mainstream press). Yet many seem to have forgotten that the New Party, particularly in Chicago, was dominated by ACORN (and by an ACORN-controlled SEIU union local). During the campaign, I detailed Obama’s New Party ties in two pieces, “Something New Here,” and “Life of the New Party.” Important evidence of Obama’s pursuit of the New Party endorsement can also be found in the September-October 1995 issue of “New Ground,” newsletter of the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Obama’s New Party ties matter because they show that his links to ACORN went far beyond shared on-the-ground organizing, legal representation, training, or even funding (although all of those ties existed and were important). By running for office with the New Party, Obama was effectively indicating that he shared ACORN’s radical political goals.
We know that Mr. Obama shares ACORN’s goals of wealth redistribution and a fundamental shake-up of the country’s economy. The evidence of this claim is based solely on his actions since taking office:
- essentially nationalizing GM over objections of some stockholders
- driving massive reorganizations of the financial market
- borrowing hundreds of billions to create make-work government programs
- attempting to jam unpopular health care reform down the throats of working Americans
- kowtowing to our foreign adversaries in front of the U.N. and others
- threatening energy companies economy-crippling environmental reform
And the list goes on. We should bear Stanley Kurtz’s missives in mind when considering our votes in 2010’s mid-term elections. A destructive force like President Obama must be countered by a skeptical, determined opposition to ensure that mainstream Americans’ rights and lives are protected.
