Obama Clueless on ACORN Videos: Gives Interview on ABC’s This Week

Obama Clueless ACORN Claims: “Hasn’t followed ACORN controversy “closely”, “didn’t know ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money”

Refuses to discuss Congress and Senate vote to “Cut Off Acorn”

ACORN workers, unappreciative, ACORN “video”, “Inappropriate”

Less than a week after the news that Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. had been arrested at his Cambridge home last July, President Obama weighed in during a primetime press conference, calling Gates arrest by the Cambridge cops, “stupid”, while stating that “it would be fair to say”… “anyone of us would be pretty angry”. Even so, after 5 undercover videos shot at various ACORN offices across the country surfaced at FOX News-the videos showed ACORN workers giving two undercover journalists posing as a pimp and prostitute advice on how to get a loan for a brotel containing underage illegal immigrant girls from El Salvador as young as 13-it took ten days to get this rather tepid response from the President.

The President’s “response” on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

Neither Obama or Stephanopoulos pointed out which video-there were five-or, what it was he “saw” on the video was “inappropriate”, or “what” should be investigated. We’re not being tough on Stephanopoulos because, out of this morning’s big three media Obama blitzkrieg, Stephanopoulos was the only one to inquire about ACORN.

We thought we’d remind our readers that Obama is an attorney and a former law professor, he knows the weight of words and how to carefully parse what he says. Watching the video and reading the transcript he seemed purposely “vague”. If not, he needs to fire those who brief him on current affairs, a supposed daily occurrence at the White House.

Stephanopoulos began his questioning by calling ACORN one of Obama’s “allies”:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if you’re – have some of your allies made it easier for — handed your opponents some ammunition, like ACORN, for example…

OBAMA: Well, look, the — you know, I think that — are there folks in the Democratic camp or on the left who haven’t — haven’t always operated ways that I’d appreciate?

Those darn “unappreciative” folks…. ”

Obama’s remark made us wonder which camp Obama believes ACORN’s in? The “Democrats”, or “on the Left”? We’ll never know as Stephanopoulos didn’t inquire and Obama didn’t stipulate.

When queried if Obama was for Congress cutting off ACORN’s funds, Obama had this to say:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congress has just cut off…

OBAMA: Is — is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: …all funding for ACORN.

OBAMA: It’s…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you for that?

OBAMA: Is that true on the other side, as well?

Of course that’s true.

Obama didn’t answer about Congress and ACORN funds, instead he continued his earlier one-sided stream of consciousness on “folks” operating in unappreciative ways. Obama asserted that the “other side”, whom we assume may have meant Republicans, or right-wingers, had “operated” in ways that were “unappreciative”. Obama then asked “is it true on the other side” then answered his own question, stating “of course that’s true”.

Stephanopoulos continued to press Obama about funding for ACORN:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA: You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

Perhaps Obama needs to appoint a “Community Organization Accountability” Czar to keep tabs on unappreciative folks?

According to The Hill, since 1995, ACORN has received $50 million in federal funds.

Since last week both Houses voted to defund ACORN while the U.S Census Bureau announced it was cutting ties with ACORN.

If the President “hasn’t been following” the Senate, the House, and the U.S Census Bureau’s actions, what has he been “following”?

Michelle Malkin has weighed with “Obama plays dumb on ACORN”.

From MM:

“It strains credulity — no, it snaps credulity in half — to believe Obama “didn’t even know” that ACORN was “getting a whole lot of federal money” given his extensive legal services on behalf of the group and training for its voter education arm, Project Vote. (Go re-read my column from June 2008, “The ACORN Obama knows,” and all the links for a refresher course.)”>It strains credulity — no, it snaps credulity in half — to believe Obama “didn’t even know” that ACORN was “getting a whole lot of federal money” given his extensive legal services on behalf of the group and training for its voter education arm, Project Vote. (Go re-read my column from June 2008, “The ACORN Obama knows,” and all the links for a refresher course.)

We agree. Not only did Obama “play dumb” but we thought the contrast between his response to Gates’ arrest and his response to the ACORN videos was highly illuminating, in both tone and content.

Obama on Gates’ arrest:

“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that [Gates case]. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

Obama was moved to interject his opinion of what he believed occurred in Gates’ arrest-while admitting he didn’t know the facts. His apparent lack of “anger” over videos showing ACORN workers giving advice-advice regarding underage illegal immigrant girls as young as 13 brought into the country to be trained as prostitutes-earned from Obama the invective, “inappropriate”. Obama didn’t even claim ACORN “acted stupidly”. Which, according to the public, the vast majority of the members of Congress and the Census Bureau, ACORN workers acted much, much worse than the “stupid” Cambridge cops.

Obama didn’t state unequivocally that ACORN workers were acting inappropriately. Obama called for an investigation but didn’t specify ACORN. In fact, the one time he spoke the word ACORN was to claim he “didn’t know ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money”.

In August of 2008, Michelle Malkin put together a great reference post on Obama, CSI, and ACORN titled ACORN Watch, Pt II: Obama hid $800,000 payment to ACORN through “Citizen Services, Inc.”

Here’s the ACORN exchange excerpt from ABC’s This Week transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if you’re – have some of your allies made it easier for — handed your opponents some ammunition, like ACORN, for example…

OBAMA: Well, look, the — you know, I think that — are there folks in the Democratic camp or on the left who haven’t — haven’t always operated ways that I’d appreciate?

Absolutely.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congress has just cut off…

OBAMA: Is — is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: …all funding for ACORN.

OBAMA: It’s…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you for that?

OBAMA: Is that true on the other side, as well?

Of course that’s true.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA: You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.

by LBG

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Tags: ABC, ACORN, Congress, defund, defunding, excerpt, George Stephapoulos, investigation, Michelle Malkin, Obama, senate, This Week, U.S. Census Bureau, videos, vote