ACORN Getting Adult Supervision

In 1970, when Students for a Democratic Society was organizing draft resistance to protest the Vietnam War, Wade Rathke, a SDS worker, founded the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, made up of lefties committed to social justice, anti-poverty and community activism.

Unfortunately, SDS splintered and devolved into a group called The Weatherman, whose agenda eroded into underground terrorist activities. ACORN's concepts of sweat equity and a people's platform ("We are the majority, forged from all the minorities"), however, had an egalitarian energy and youthful idealistic appeal that gained momentum, strength and financial support for the next 30 years. Today the organization for "low- and moderate-income families" has over half a million members in inner-city neighborhoods across 75 U.S. urban areas and has made notable gains against discriminatory housing and hiring practices.

Unfortunately, the public interest group's philosophy and tactical approach never completely grew up. A bit like an anarchist brother who calls his sister's banker father-in-law a capitalist pig, ACORN activists embarrassed its liberal family with radical techniques and corner-cutting methods. In 2008, under a contract to sign up low-income voters for the presidential election, ACORN members submitted registration forms filled out by "Mickey Mouse" and the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys. Wade Rathke was ousted after a series of "improper management decisions." But last week, secretly recorded ACORN housing counselors in Baltimore, Brooklyn and Washington D.C. were seen advising a couple, posing as brothel operator and prostitute, how to avoid taxes and exploit fictional child sex victims.

The counselors were fired, and today ACORN's current CEO, Bertha Lewis, announced the organization is finally getting some grownup supervision. In addition to conducting an "independent review," the group has called on a recently formed advisory counsel of political figures to "facilitate a transition to a new management." The group includes some leading lights on the left, including Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland and niece of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy; John Podesta, former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton and founder of Center for American Progress; and Andrew Stern, president of Service Employees International Union, and coincidentally, one-time student activist.

Whatever they do, it won't be a moment too soon. As a left-leaning journalist I've been distressed by the organization's lack of respect for transparency and its demeaning of the democratic process.