From Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace suggests to ACORN's Bertha Lewis that the hit job done on them which I think amounts to entrapment by the conservative film maker James O'Keefe means that the improvements made under Lewis' watch are meaningless. I'm not sure what more he thought she should do besides fire these workers.
Emit at Daily KOS has more on Karl Rove wanna' be James O'Keefe--O'Keefe said he went after ACORN because it registers minorities likely to vote against Republicans:
James O’Keefe, one of the two filmmakers, said he went after ACORN because it registers minorities likely to vote against Republicans: "Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization," O’Keefe told The Washington Post. "No one was holding this organization accountable."New York Times: Did ACORN Get Too Big for Its Own Good?
That statement alone should be enough to prompt curious progressive minds to dig a bit deeper into this young Rove-in-the-Making, James E. O'Keefe III.
In the court of public opinion, thrust at us via Fox News and Breitbart, these videos that O'Keefe and Hannah Giles created seem to have offered up immediate 'proof' of ACORN's corruption, on the whole.
Verdict? Guilty until proven innocent!
After all, who wants to defend someone who condones and even appears to assist in the trafficking of teenage prostitutes? O'Keefe knows this. It's been his game for some time.
Jump in.
Transcript below the fold.
LEWIS: Congressman Issa is right. You have competitive grants and you need to compete with a lot of other folks. You need to deliver those services. He's absolutely right.
He's absolutely right that his staff, who repeatedly talked to the lawyers at Harmon Curran that said we did an internal -- a lawyer kind of privileged confidential document. They gave advice. Since I took over, I have overhauled the entire system.
WALLACE: Well, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Wait.
LEWIS: And we took our advice.
WALLACE: Wait.
LEWIS: And that's what we're doing.
WALLACE: You say that you overhauled...
LEWIS: And we're making...
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: You say you overhauled the whole system.
LEWIS: Yes.
WALLACE: There are the videos which have happened on your watch.
LEWIS: Yes.
WALLACE: I just want to put up -- there are ACORN workers...
LEWIS: That's right.
WALLACE: ... advising young men and women posing as a pimp and a prostitute how to buy a house and avoid paying taxes. Here it is.
(VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: I want to point out, because you've also attacked FOX, FOX did not produce, did not make, did not buy those videos. We've just put them on the air like everybody else now has. You were brought in a year ago to clean up ACORN. Is this the new and improved ACORN?
LEWIS: Well, what did I do? Immediately these folks were terminated. Immediately...
WALLACE: Well, actually, first you attacked us and said it was a...
LEWIS: Immediate -- no.
WALLACE: ... it was a political and a racial conspiracy.
LEWIS: They were terminated immediately. I know the sequence. Those folks were terminated immediately. And what did I also do? Make sure that we have an independent review, make sure that we suspended any walk-in activities so we could review what worked, what didn't work?
In instances those folks were thrown out. I have an obligation to my board, to my members and to my other employees that actually did practice professional, good high standards. Those folks cannot work for me.
WALLACE: But why is it still going on a year after you took office?
LEWIS: Well, here's the thing. I -- as I said, the first thing that we began to do was reorganize our board, make sure that we had financial structures and controls, make sure the way our offices were managed -- and in a -- in a way, it's indefensible what I saw there.
That is why I said, "You know what? We're going to terminate these folks immediately," even though I've been reviewing things and making sure that we look at an organization that has...
WALLACE: Now...
LEWIS: ... 71 sites. In a way, this was good for us, so what it did was show up to us what weaknesses we have, and we have moved swiftly...
WALLACE: ACORN...
LEWIS: ... in order to correct that.
Wallace then drops the subject and moves on to trying to link President Obama to the group because he did some work for them ages ago. Both Issa and Wallace were extremely hostile to Lewis for the entirety of the interview.
