Charles Lipson, political science professor at the University of Chicago, in The Chicago Tribune:
Independent prosecutors should not be appointed lightly. But in this case, there are good reasons why Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and other political appointees in the Justice Department should step aside. First, although no allegations have yet touched the Obama campaign, ACORN did have significant ties to the campaign and other progressive causes. Published reports show that ACORN and its subsidiaries received some $800,000 from the Obama campaign to get out the vote. Second, ACORN is intimately tied to the Service Employees International Union, one of President Barack Obama's most powerful and vocal supporters. ...
Holder has compounded these concerns with two recent decisions. In New Mexico, federal attorneys apparently recommended high-level prosecutions in the pay-for-play scandal swirling around Gov. Bill Richardson. Holder's office overrode them and dropped the case. Holder also decided to drop the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, where thugs were caught on tape brandishing clubs outside a voting precinct. In both cases, Holder has refused to explain his actions.
After these decisions and Holder's silence about them, there is simply no reason to hand him another high-profile case with political ramifications.
Nonpartisan ruse. Perhaps it's time we require that get-out-the-vote groups and nonprofit housing agencies represent more than one political party, or at the very least, that they make public what portion of their staff, volunteers and leaders is from each of the major parties.
ACORN got large and lawless because it claimed to be a nonpartisan organization serving poor people when its leaders knew its primary mission was to protect and expand the power of one party.
Political parties should do that kind of work on their own dime.
Frank Warner
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