October 25, 2008

"They should have picked a more ominous name, like KAOS or SPECTRE, instead of squirrel food."

"Something really scary. They are the biggest nut-based threat to America since Mr. Peanut tried to assassinate the GOP elephant to impress the Morton Salt girl.”

Stephen Colbert has a problem with the name ACORN.

25 comments:

The Drill SGT said...

ACORN is at its root a partisan criminal enterprise that blackmails banks, pays off politicans, seeks pork barrel subsidies, falsifies public documents and steals votes.

And it does so claiming to be a non-partisan, non-profit group of Community Organizers.

What is needed is a US Attorney with a RICO investigation.

My sense of Colbert's comment is that he is attempting to reshape the ACORN issue and get it off the table

Unknown said...

Naming an organization just to get a nifty acronym out of it is just soooo... FUBAR.

cardeblu said...

Stephanie said...
Naming an organization just to get a nifty acronym out of it is just soooo... FUBAR.


Hey Stephanie, just consider it a SNAFU.

Palladian said...

"My sense of Colbert's comment is that he is attempting to reshape the ACORN issue and get it off the table"

Of course. That's how Jon Stewart and Colbert work. They try to make issues that would be legitimately damaging to their interests (the Democratic party, leftist politics) seem ridiculous. By overstating and mocking concerns about the very serious issue of what ACORN has done in this election, they help defuse the criticism. Their predominantly young audience is sufficiently sequestered from both unbiased factual information and reality that it passively accepts the premise that talking about ACORN in a serious way is ridiculous.

Of course, it's also good for a comedy bit, but the motivation (besides getting rich) for Colbert and Stewart is primarily political.

Unfortunately for a large swath of the left, satire, cynicism and nihilism is all remains. Their only philosophy is negation.

Unknown said...

Yeah, they should have named it BOHICA.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Yes, because election fraud is just a punchline to a joke. No need to worry.

Especially when that fraud helps the candidate that Colbert and Jon Stewart prefer.

Palladian said...

My point being: I wish there were more Democrats in the middle ground between the hazy peaks of naive Utopianism and the smelly ditch of radical nihilism.

Who wanders the desert between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers?

Unknown said...

The true question is.. is there a desert betwixt the two?

Palladian said...

"The true question is.. is there a desert betwixt the two?"

Yes, but that doesn't mean there's not a tunnel underneath.

Wince said...

I was thinking R.I.C.O.

Hopefully, the DoJ is too.

Unknown said...

I don't see a desert betwixt them. I see them on a sparsely populated infectious island and the populace building a bridge to the disease.

Betwixt.... I did it again!!

Chip Ahoy said...

It's not a nut-based acronym. It's a corn-based acronym.

The original name was Community Organizations for Reform Now, Housing, Occupations, Litigation, and Education, but they didn't much care for the resulting acronym so they lobbed off the end and stuck Association on the front.

JAL said...

I can't see the DoJ doing a thing about RICO and ACORN. If BHO is elected POTUS you can KISS any chance of J-U-S-T-I-C-E good BYE.

(Unless we could get someone like Fitzpatrick on it? Quick?)

If 01-20-09 BHO occurs? -- Fergeddabout it. We are going to be in the swamp.

It will be interesting to see how law professors deal with it in the classroom.

Unknown said...

Chip.

LOL. Comment of the day.

Too bad the media are cruising on the yacht DILLIGAS.

I saw a yacht on Looe Key named DILLIGAS in 2007. Had to explain the name to my teenagers. They thought it was funny.

Bissage said...

I remind myself that Stephen Colbert is a highly paid professional comedian with a large staff.

(I said “staff.” Heh, heh, heh, heh.)

Still . . . the reminding . . . she does nothing.

I remain insanely jealous I didn't think of it first.

George M. Spencer said...

The best agents—Drake, Steed, and Peel—spied for acronymless entities.

The look on his face--and hers--when she pops his cork...priceless.

UWS guy said...

In before, "poor people and black home owners are responsible for the financial meltdown."


ooops...too late.

Bissage said...

** reads Stephanie’s 2:38 **

** re-reads Chip’s 2:20 closer than before **

** laughs **

walter neff said...

Betwixt.... I got a whole bag full of those candies to give out for Halloween.

You know it's real hard to find those razors to put in the jelly apples. Everybody uses disposables now.

Anonymous said...

Palladian said...That's how Jon Stewart and Colbert work. They try to make issues that would be legitimately damaging to their interests (the Democratic party, leftist politics) seem ridiculous.

By overstating and mocking concerns about the very serious issue of what ACORN has done in this election, they help defuse the criticism.

Their predominantly young audience is sufficiently sequestered from both unbiased factual information and reality that it passively accepts the premise that talking about ACORN in a serious way is ridiculous.


Saul Alinsky wrote an entertaining classic on grassroots organizing titled Rules for Radicals

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

ricpic said...

America is the country that is always becoming --
Finding joy in the chaos;
Tossing and turning in its troubled sleep to come awake;
Plowing through the black and roiling waters of this dark sea,
Its eyes never losing, never completely losing, the horizon.
God bless you and keep you, mighty nation mine,
As you search the passage to your soul.

bleeper said...

The DoJ will not investigate - they are on the same side as ACORN and want Obama elected.

David said...

Here is the etymology of the word acorn from "Online Etymology Dictionary."

"O.E. æcern "nut," common Gmc. (cf. O.N. akarn, Du. aker, Low Ger. ecker "acorn," Goth. akran "fruit"), originally the mast of any forest tree, and ultimately related to related (via notion of "fruit of the open or unenclosed land") to O.E. æcer "open land," Goth. akrs "field," O.Fr. aigrun "fruits and vegetables" (from a Gmc. source); see acre. The sense gradually restricted in Low Ger., Scand. and Eng. to the most important of the forest produce for feeding swine, the mast of the oak tree. Spelling changed by folk etymology from oak (O.E. ac) + corn."

Acorn is a lobbying organization, among other things. So the "feeding swine" part was pretty accurate.

Duncan said...

I can't believe your commenters have even less connection to the culture than the Marxists at ACORN:

"Mighty Oaks from little Acorns grow!"

Bissage said...

Mighty Oaks from little Acorns grow!

Wow! Now I get it!

** slaps forehead **

Now if I could only figure out why they call that stuff Flomax®.