Rant was wrong about ACORN

Published 8:27 am Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Tom Jacobson’s erratic rant about the community organization ACORN was misguided and factually inaccurate. First of all, blaming ACORN for the financial crisis is just wrong. It requires a 10-step leap and a suspension of all logic. Practicing in guilt by association by association is counterproductive. Even if you are looking for a scapegoat in ACORN, it’s important to remember that John McCain himself has worked with ACORN, even praising them in a recent speech and appearing at an ACORN pro-immigration rally.

Jacobson is also just flat wrong about Barack Obama representing ACORN. I did some research and found out that Obama’s represented the U.S. Department of Justice in a case that ACORN was also involved in along with the League of Women Voters in Illinois.

And when assessing blame for the housing crisis, Sen. Obama has made it clear that he believes there is plenty of blame to go around. But at the heart of this crisis is the failure over the last eight years to regulate the financial industry in any legitimate way. Among the two candidates, Sen. John McCain is the only one who has called himself a “deregulator at heart.” A year into this crisis, when banks were collapsing left and right, John McCain’s stubborn insistence that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” shows just how out of touch with the reality of this crisis he is. I wonder if John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis, a high-paid lobbyist who was hired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had anything to do with John McCain’s campaign position that the fundamentals of the economy are strong?

Email newsletter signup

So before wildly and pointing fingers and assessing blame, we should get the facts straight.

Elissa Vicks

Albert Lea