Comment by cwan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cwan | Hacker News Reader

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Not sure you've got your facts right on the swiftboating campaign: http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit-archive/archives/017... (Glenn Reynolds isn't a conservative - nor am I). That being said, I don't know that you're right about the nature of the Acorn videos (though I would agree that they were ultimately used by partisans) - but even if you are, you seem to assume that journalists don't have some type of agenda (Jayson Blair, Dan Rather or even as far back as Pulitzer prize winner Walter Duranty).

On the other side of it, I'm not sure your concerns that false partisan attacks will win the day are justified - look at the "birthers" who have been thoroughly discredited and marginalized (ie the ones who claim Obama wasn't born on American soil).

At least with respect to Acorn, it has had a slew of scandals plague them and yet various levels of the US government had continued to trust them with rather important tasks - e.g. help at the IRS, census, etc.. In my view these were far worse offenses than the 'entrapment' that brought them down. There is no reason that larger media outlets shouldn't have pursued this story themselves - after all - the cost even of putting out the Acorn story was less than five thousand dollars. Meanwhile, supposedly reputable outlets like the NYT had trouble covering the story until the Obama Administration and Congress began to react and cut funding and ties to Acorn.

I'm all for disclosure. Let's be open to criticism/investigations from anyone and everyone and let them be judged on their merits.

No, Glenn Reynolds is a glibertarian who always votes, supports, and blogs about conservative causes.

Also, the Acorn worker in question reported the two actors in the video to police: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,553423,00.html

There were multiple Acorn workers in question (you can see the 4-5 videos off of the original site that launched it at Andrew Breitbart's biggovernment.com site). That being said, the fact that Acorn fired this particular woman really undermines their defense. Given the many other serious allegations against the organization however, it is good to know that the Obama Administration has called for an investigation into Acorn's activities.

I think this only reinforces the original point that we need more investigations like this and people who are willing to challenge various organizations and governments - and further - that traditional media outlets are often either unable (given the breadth of targets/perceived costs) or unwilling (possibly because of ideology?) to do it.

[On Glenn Reynolds, you'll find that he has been less than supportive of Republicans pointing out that the 'tea parties' are less about being pro-Republican as they are about being more a reaction to greater government interventions - which were started under the previous Republican administration]

How many Acorn offices did these guys actually visit in total? How many times were they able to get advice from Acorn staffers, and how many times were the filmers reported to authorities?

I totally agree that we need more investigations like this, and that this investigation certainly seems to have uncovered some interesting stuff, but I also get the feeling like there are some pieces from the story that are missing, and I wonder a little if that isn't maybe a general problem when these kinds of sting operations are carried out by activists with a strong political agenda.

Interestingly, this is what the New York Times itself has to say on the matter (and I think it's at least commendable that they acknowledge their shortcomings on what, in the very least, was a newsworthy story):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/opinion/27pubed.html?_r=2&...

"But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes — closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser — suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs. Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself."

I, too, hope that there will be more disclosure on the story as they are fairly serious allegations and it would be helpful to know the sample sizes of the report - but what I find surprising is how non-curious those like the NYT were - and they're admitting as much.

They seem to have entirely ignored the story or attacked those doing the reporting as opposed to digging up facts for themselves. This reinforces the point not only that we need more investigations like this but that we can't rely on traditional media outlets for these stories. As the NYT notes, sure, sometimes these stories just turn out to be unsubstantiated polemics - but that doesn't necessarily make them wrong.

[On Glenn Reynolds, you'll find that he has been less than supportive of Republicans pointing out that the 'tea parties' are less about being pro-Republican as they are about being more a reaction to greater government interventions - which were started under the previous Republican administration]

Bullshit. The tea parties are about misplaced righteous anger. Most of the people there have no idea what "government intervention" means and are simply reactionaries to Fox News/right smear propaganda. It's clear that most of them don't even know what they're protesting about, they just want to call the President a socialist.

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