Palin: Obama Should Rein in ACORN

Sarah Palin finally made an appearance on Rush Limbaugh's show, and this excerpt is getting some attention:

Rush Limbaugh: "The media is covering up for him. That is why there's so much admiration for you. The New York Times said you were a great speaker....your forcefulness and your opinions are driving away moderates. This is just an attempt to get you to stop."

Sarah Palin: "Well, yes, I guess that message is they do want me to sit down and shut up, but that's not gonna happen. I care too much about this great country. ... Speaking of some of those associations...lets talk quickly about ACORN and the unconscionable situation that we are facing right now with voter fraud, given the ties between Obama and ACORN and the money his campaign has sent them...Obama has a responsibility to reign in ACORN and prove that he is willing to fight voter fraud....for shame if the mainstream media were to cover this one up."

Unfortunately, despite all the attention ACORN is getting right now, you won't see the mainstream media connecting the dots between ACORN and Obama in anything other than a superficial manner.

The Wall Street Journal, however, is making those connections:

In 1992 [Obama] led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn. This past November, he lauded Acorn’s leaders for being “smack dab in the middle” of that effort. Mr. Obama also served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995, in a case against Illinois to increase access to the polls.

During his tenure on the board of Chicago’s Woods Fund, that body funneled more than $200,000 to Acorn. More recently, the Obama campaign paid $832,000 to an Acorn affiliate. The campaign initially told the Federal Election Commission this money was for “staging, sound, lighting.” It later admitted the cash was to get out the vote.

The Obama campaign is now distancing itself from Acorn, claiming Mr. Obama never organized with it and has nothing to do with illegal voter registration. Yet it’s disingenuous to channel cash into an operation with a history of fraud and then claim you’re shocked to discover reports of fraud. As with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, Mr. Obama was happy to associate with Acorn when it suited his purposes. But now that he’s on the brink of the Presidency, he wants to disavow his ties.

The Justice Department needs to treat these fraud reports as something larger than a few local violators. The question is whether Acorn is systematically subverting U.S. election law — on the taxpayer’s dime.