Easy nuts to crack

— I don't know why people have their undies in a knot because some ACORN workers offered financial tips to a man and a woman posing as a pimp and a hooker.

Still, on Thursday the U.S. House voted not to give any more federal money to the community organizing group.

There's been a big stink since James O'Keefe III, 25, and Hannah Giles, 20, moseyed into ACORN offices, posing as a pimp with a cane and his hotly attired lady of the evening. The two right-wing pranksters asked ACORN workers how they could get around the law while buying a house to use as a brothel and hire underage girls from El Salvador.

Some of the ACORN workers actually fell for it. An ACORN worker in Baltimore suggested that on the loan application the prostitute be described as a "freelance performing artist."

According to the Associated Press, O'Keefe had pulled these sorts of dirty tricks before. Five years ago, he used a hidden camera to tape a Rutgers University official while trying to get Lucky Charms cereal banned from campus.

O'Keefe's satirical line? Lucky Charms offend Irish Americans.

This time, the ACORN staffers were recorded offering advice to the pimp and his pimpette on how they could get into business on the street without getting in trouble with the feds.

There's no doubt the right is playing sneaky and nasty here. (Big surprise.) But you'd think ACORN could hire a smarter bunch. How could they be so gullible that they couldn't tell a fake pimp from the real thing? This is a group that's supposed to be in touch with the community, right? If the pimp and his prostitute drove up in a Hummer with a Glenn Beck bumper sticker on the back window, that should be a tipoff.

An ACORN employee should know if it ain't got fuzzy dice hanging off the rear view mirror, it probably ain't no pimpmobile.

Just about anybody ought to be able to pick out a faux pimp. I mean, I'll bet you couldn't even fool Texas Governor Rick Perry's people with the stunt these two used.

Really, if I rented a feather boa and platform shoes and walked into Perry's office and said, "Lookee here, chump. I got me a way we can raise some money to whup up on that Hutchison chick," Perry's people would know they were being had.

ACORN ought to be street-smart enough to know the same.

John Kelso writes for the Austin American-Statesman.

Editorial, Pages 18 on 09/23/2009

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