New York Times

Re: Consortiumnews.com, NYT Admits Getting Duped on ACORN, By Robert Parry, March 21, 2010

The New York Times admits, sort of, that it got duped by right-wing propagandists who appear to have succeeded in a plot to destroy ACORN, an organization that for four decades has aided and defended the poor and powerless across the United States.

In an op-ed column Sunday, the Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt said he has reviewed the available information and concluded that some key points of the right-wing presentation were false or misleading, including the claim that right-wing media activist James O’Keefe showed up at ACORN offices dressed in a pimp costume before getting legal advice on setting up a brothel.

“O’Keefe almost certainly did not go into the Acorn offices in the outlandish costume — fur coat, goggle-like sunglasses, walking stick and broad-brimmed hat — in which he appeared at the beginning and end of most of his videos,” Hoyt wrote, adding that the Times was considering a correction regarding its earlier reporting that reflected this misleading point.

Hoyt also acknowledged that perhaps the most damning part of the ACORN sting story was wrong: ACORN staffers did not go along with a plan to use under-aged Salvadoran girls as prostitutes. Indeed, the staffers may have thought they were helping to protect the girls.

So the entire Congress, Democrat and Republican alike, owes ACORN an apology. More than that, they need to reimburse ACORN for the money that was wrongfully, experts say unconstitutionally, taken from them and has subsequently resulted in ACORN filing for bankruptcy protection in many major districts.

But will Congress set things right for ACORN? It is not likely that they would do the right thing.

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