Fishing for ACORNs

In the wake of the arrest of James O’Keefe in Louisiana, where he was caught tampering with the phones of Senator Mary Landrieu, along with revelations which reveal that O’Keefe had been illegally taping conversations in other states, while attempting to entrap ACORN workers into giving illegal advise, Republicans need to reexamine the methods that they supported in their attempt to cast ACORN as an organization that rigs elections.

In a lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia last month, the Director for ACORN contends that O’Keefe aggressively attempted to entrap ACORN employees into giving illegal election advice, while surreptitiously taping the conversations. The plaintiffs in similar lawsuits in other states make the same charges. It seems that O’Keefe’s MO has been to attempt to create crimes where crimes did not previously exist. This is known as entrapment, and is clearly illegal. If any employees of ACORN did engage in illegal activities on their own, then they should be prosecuted. Let’s take a look at how ACORN is handling actual allegations of voter fraud, and judge them on that basis. However, anyone who attempts to create a crime in order to bring about a criminal prosecution is himself a criminal, and should be just as aggressively prosecuted. O’Keefe, and those like him, are a cancer on American values.

The Republican Party calls itself patriotic. If the GOP is truly patriotic, then its members need to denounce O’Keefe and his un-American games. And, if the GOP truly loves America, then it will not support such un-American attempts to defame fellow Americans, whose only crime is to believe differently than they do. The GOP doesn’t support tactics from the playbook of the old Soviet KGB, do they? Or do they? Its actions, in the next few days, or weeks, will answer that question.

Where ACORN has done wrong, let it pay for its actions, and by the same token, let James O'Keefe pay for his. And I also sincerely hope that Republicans kick O'Keefe's ass to the curb quickly, and denounce him for his activities, which were clearly un-American.