the ACORN myth

from tmorange
to aburns@politico.com
cc jharris@politico.com, JVandehei@politico.com
date Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 1:24 PM
subject ACORN gives GOP new line of attack

Dear Mr. Burns,

Although I was pleased to see your piece in The Politico begin with the rhetorical gambit of debunking, as little more than the oldest game in the political book, overblown notions about ACORN that right-wingers are once again peddling and the so-called liberal media are lapping up this election season, my jaw dropped as your piece unfolded into pure partisan hackery.

You declare "the latest wave of ACORN investigations" and later "the latest wave of registration-fraud allegations" and yet never define what constitutes a "wave." Had you looked to facts, you might have discovered 10 current investigations, which at 20% of states nationwide might seem like a lot. But you might have also attempted to quantify whether the handfuls of fraudulent registrations alleged in each case amount to even a drop in the bucket amidst the hundreds of thousands of new registrations that have been taken place nationwide in perfect compliance with local and federal election law. Let alone whether such investigations have in the past turned up any actual fraud. They haven't, as you eventually report.

Unfortunately these are the least of your oversights. As evidence for your piece, you proceed to cite a recent Nevada raid, cite a McCain campaign memo, and list some unsourced ACORN-obama connections; you then cite three additional GOP sources (Matt Blunt, the McCain campaign website, and Roy Blunt), detail (again unsourced) ACORN's history, and cite an anonymous Republican memo. We hear not a word from any Obama campaign spokespersons. We hear barely a word about the many other kinds of work -- in terms of living wages, better housing and schools, and neighborhood safety -- that ACORN performs on behalf of local communities. (Well, "advocating for issues related to economic and social equity" amounts to 9 vague words.)

We have to get 950 words into a 1290-word piece -- that's over 70% of the way -- to find any exculpatory evidence on ACORN's behalf. We have to get 1120 words into a 1290-word piece -- that's over 85% of the way -- to hear a single word from an ACORN spokesperson.

If your editors decide to keep you on the ACORN beat -- though personally I think they should send you back to journalism school to teach you some basics of objective and unbiased reporting -- I encourage you to begin with Josh Marshall's piece entitled "The Gist of ACORN," which should help you put some of your "facts" in perspective.

cc: J. Harris, Editor-in-Chief
cc: J. VandeHei, Executive Editor

the ayers "relationship"

from tmorange
to "Stanley Kurtz" (skurtz@eppc.org)
date Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 1:20 AM
subject NYT's Ayers-Obama Whitewash

Mr. Kurtz,

In reference to William Ayers's 1997 book, A Kind and Just Parent, you wrote on The Corner the other day: "That book is quite radical, expressing doubts about whether we ought to have a prison system at all, comparing America to South Africa's apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country." The apartheid charge is one you have levied repeatedly: on Fox News Network's "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren: "And in that book on juvenile crime, Bill Ayers says a lot of things, a lot of very radical things about the United States, compares the U.S. justice system to apartheid" (September 23); in the Weekly Standard: "Ayers also makes a point of comparing America's prison system to the mass-detention of a generation of young blacks under South African Apartheid" (August 11).

Since you never provide specific citations in support of this claim, I hope I am correct when I assume you are referring to the following three instances in which the word "apartheid" appears in the Ayers book.

1) On page 87, Ayers is reporting on his visit to The Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center School, in which a student named Mario is reading aloud the opening passage of a short story by Reginald McKnight entitled "The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas." Ayers writes, "'Alphabetized,' says Mario. 'Alphabetized. They didn't stick us in the back, or arrange us by degrees of hue, apartheid-like. This was real integration.[...]'" Not do these sentiments belong to McKnight's short story rather than Ayers himself; additionally, they are describing an integrated school, one exactly opposite that of an apartheid system.

2) On page 165, Ayers is reporting the words of a South African friend, Michael Freeman, "an official with the Anglican Church in charge of voter education and registration [who has] worked closely with the African National Congress during the resistance and now [1997] works with the Mandela government. Michael is in Chicago to exchange information with community-based voter projects and to meet with foundation officers about strategies for funding his efforts. 'You know,' he tells us early in his visit, 'we face a desperate problem with youth crime. Under apartheid our youth were rounded up and incarcerated in huge numbers. Now, with no formal education, and bearing the scars of growing up in prison, these young people must somehow integrate into the new society. It is a critical, monumental struggle for us.'" Here Freeman, not Ayers, is simply pointing out the implications of mass youth incarcerations based on his own experience in South Africa, perhaps in the hopes that the American justice system might learn from and correct the unintended consequences of such policies. (It's not even clear if he's truly making a comparison with the American system here at all.)

3) Finally, on page 183, the same Michael Freeman has just departed from a visit to the same Chicago classroom. "So many black boys in cages," says Freeman, not Ayers. "This feels like apartheid." Notice Freeman, again not Ayers, is drawing a point of resemblance, "feels like" in one specific respect, not "is identical to" in every respect. He knows America does not embrace apartheid but can't help drawing a resemblance in this instance.

In claiming that it "compares America to South Africa's apartheid system," you misrepresent the Ayers book in at least three fundamental respects. First, you attribute directly to Ayers words and sentiments expressed not by Ayers himself but by others in his narrative. Second, you strip these statements of any and all context that would render them even remotely intelligible: namely that one is a fictionalized account of an integrated, not segregated school system, while the other two are spoken by a South African possibly warning Americans about the dangers of apartheid and even the slightest possible resemblances to it. Third, you wildly overstate the significance of these three incidental passages for the book as a whole.

Given that a reviewer for the conservative bulwark Chicago Tribune wrote, "There must continue to be thoughtful books like Ayers' that illustrate the profound flaws of today's juvenile-justice system and society's abandonment of the young and poor. Ayers' book provides a valuable step in understanding what is happening" (March 8, 1998, page 12), one cannot help but wonder why you have so willfully distorted the Ayers book -- especially when they are so easily checked (via Google Books) -- or what precisely in the three sentences I have identified and contextualized above has anything remotely to do with Senator Obama.

Could it be you, Mr. Kurtz, and not Ayers, who is the radical here -- a radical bent on adding your own personal smudge to an ongoing, guilt-by-association political smear? You claim that the NYT piece "makes no serious attempt to present the views of Obama critics who have worked to uncover the true nature of the relationship. That makes this piece irresponsible journalism." The evidence I have presented above suggests that you are the irresponsible "journalist" crying sour grapes over the fact that the NYT wisely and responsibly ignores distortions and fabrications like yours.