ACORN: a chart

Look here. It's difficult to know how to begin making sense of this. It is obviously anti-Obama and embellishing or exaggerating, but I'm supposing there is at least a kernel of truth, likely more than a kernel.

But it's genuinely difficult to draw the line between fact and fiction; between what really matters and what might be dismissed with a sensible explanation.

I wish all the sources I can find about ACORN weren't so obviously biased.

As a baseline, I've seen no evidence that Obama's involvement with ACORN was in any kind of bad faith. He seems to have some fundamental disagreements with me about how government should interfere with the credit markets and force lenders to give NINJA mortgages. But I'm not sure it's worse than things like the prosperity gospel, for instance. Ideas like George W. Bush's "ownership society" contributed to the problem, as well.

I'm going to try to understand this ACORN thing and post more if I can....

Republican National Committee: VOTE FRAUD ALERT: Obama & ACORN Fact Sheet

That links back to the Obama camp's fight the smears website, which makes counter-assertions they dispute.

Here are a couple HuffPost stories: 3 October, 5 October

I'm trying hard to find stuff that's less partisan, but the pickings are slim.

I did a search on RCP, for instance: The hits are Fox News, Michelle Malkin, National Review, and some talk show hosts. Hardly an unbiased filter, but then they'll all say the rest of the media is biased towards Obama. Even the New York Times is a "pro-Obama advocacy group" these days, according to the McCain campaign.

I think I'd like a respected conservative blogger like Ross Douthat to look into the ACORN story. Today he has two posts on Bill Ayers. Those are great reads compared to the usual partisan hackery.