From Mighty Desperation, Little ACORNs Grow

Expect ACORN to be raised tonight, in the all-too-well known balancing act of insinuation and implication used to fill in the gaps of insufficient actual evidence of the argument being insinuated, with the hope that quickly those who are insufficiently aware of the difference between impulse inducing bad sounding words, and actual evidence, and who are not accustomed to spotting the quick glide between inflammatory suggestion and connection to one unrelated to that suggestion will be deluded into suspicion and fury.

Anyone who has encountered or worked for one of these grassroots organizations in their youth knows exactly what has happened here. ACORN hires hourly workers to collect registrations. It's difficult to hire a team 0f workers who will be infallible and trustworthy at any level--hence the shakeout on Wall Street--and is also true here. Therefore, of the millions of registrations collected, some of these are done by people who are trying to make their money quickly-m the so they create dubious registrations--e.g. Tony Romo--to get paid fast. This is the equivalent of 10 of 1000 people hired to flyer a neighborhood dumping the flyers in the trash--the motive here is easy money and the reason is that when you hire people, you get some people who do this.

This is ugly, common, and unavoidable in all work--ask the pampered AIG executives who, after the bailout, accepted their magnificent dinners and massages. Both are execrable. Neither is voter fraud.

This is where the tiresomely repetitive machine of the right once again begins to slowly turn its gears in its negative alchemy in the creation of motivated, baseless, paranoia. Clear away the smoke and mirrors, the attempt to create groundless outrage , the feeling of suspicion without actual fact, the way that Republicans so often have chose to wage their electoral efforts in recent decades, and

It's simple:

ACORN is registering people. These are not votes.

ACORN is required by law to turn in all completed forms--even if filled out by an imaginary figure like Spongebob Squarepants or Mitt Romney.

These registrations are simply being filled out so these hourly workers can get done fast. It is unlikely that they will also have engaged in a secret cabal to have Mr. Squarepants show up to vote. If he were, Bob would be cast away from the polls as all such registrants would be. Abraham Lincoln will not be allowed to vote when he shows up in Tallahassee. No vote. Not voter fraud.

The Republicans know this, as they knew when they mounted their previous hue and cry over "voter fraud" that showed no actual occurrences of such fraud.

This is simply the same effort--couldn't they at least develop a novel approach to factless assertion?--to stir the anger of the base, and hope that in the whirlwind of emotion, devoid of the actual idea they are insinuating, that, in the confusion, fear, and lack of knowledge of busy voters, something may stick. In addition, given the abject failure of the more overt unleashing of the furies this past week, which resulted in a fall in the polls, they are trying to implement the slur and tar strategy in a slightly--emphasize slightly--more subtle way, by suggesting a "radical" "grassroots" effort to "steal". You get the idea.

If only it weren't projection. However, we've seen this pattern of decrying the same action that they have done and their enemies have not done before--for example, since the beginning of this election cycle.

Don't fall for this desperate stirring of the pot. If they have to win on another attempt to induce inchoate, baseless fear, it means that once again, they can't win on the substance. We know what we get in such cases. Do what you ordinarily do with acorns. Children may study them for a moment, for their brief novelty--to them. You?

You walk around them and continue towards your goal.

UPDATE: 9:39 p.m. I hate to say I told you so...