Of course the big story today is Colin Powell’s ringing endorsement of Barack Obama for President, but you can find info on that at any of the major news sites. It was a strong endorsement, I think, though I still hold a grudge regarding Powell’s appearance before the UN; an appearance that helped convince the world and the American public that Iraq was an imminent threat.\
\
There’s a bit of pushback in the media on this ACORN story, as DailyKos details, and I think it’s with good reason. I’ve made my feelings about ACORN clear on this blog, but I’m starting to believe that there’s more to this story. I think that the fraud, in this case, is against ACORN, and the blood is on the hands of not just the right-wing blogosphere, FOXNews, and McCain, but also on the hands of the Bush Administration. It seems to me that the idea is to delegitimize this election, which Obama will likely win, and therefore to make his win seem undeserved.\
\
Part of it because Bush’s Department of Justice (which, under Alberto Gonzales, fired US Attorneys because they couldn’t find voter fraud to prosecute) has leaked the fact that they’re investigating ACORN. As Josh Marshall notes, “leaking word of such an investigation (possibly starting the investigation at all) most likely violates DOJ guidelines about DOJ/FBI actions which can end up interfering with or manipulating an election.”\
\
Continuing, he says,\

But, remember, this is right out of the book of the Bush Justice Department’s efforts to assist in GOP voter suppression efforts in the 2004 and 2006 elections (part and parcel of the US Attorney firing story). This is the same scam US Attorney firing player Bradley Schlozman got in trouble for pulling with ACORN just before the 2006 election. And before he got canned, Gonzales helped revise and soften the departmental prohibition on DOJ announcements, thus making it easier to play these kinds of games.

\
David Iglesias, the posterboy for fired US Attorneys, says re: DOJ leaks:\

“I’m astounded that this issue is being trotted out again. Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it’s a scare tactic.”

\
Isn’t it questionable why the DOJ, which has been pressured to find and prosecute voter fraud but can’t, is leaking their investigation weeks before the election? There are questions about ACORN, granted, but the attack on them is coming from every branch of the right. And I can’t find any reason to be that terrified of them. At least they’re not switching voter’s party registrations. ACORN has a few bad apples, but they’ve registered more than a million voters. If a couple thousand turn out to be bad, I’d say that’s an acceptable margin of error, being that ACORN flags those bad registrations and “Donald Duck” and “Mickey Mouse” aren’t eligible to vote anyway. Because they don’t exist, they don’t have social security numbers, and they can’t show any ID.\
\
To me, the attack on ACORN is a systematic attempt to discourage people from voting and make it easier for people on the right to question the validity of the 2008 Presidential Election, all the while attacking the Dems for registering poor people and minorities. They’re already doing it, as in this robocall from the Ohio Republican Party. The US Supreme Court isn’t falling for it; they sided with Ohio’s Secretary of State recently in that dispute.\
\
In other news, the kind of vile sewage that people at McCain/Palin rallies have been spewing in recent weeks has spilled over into attacks on ACORN employees and offices, as Alabama Moderate notes.\
\
That leaves me, like Wade Kwon, find myself wishing for a better time.