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Barney Frank on Acorn
...Even after the recent revelations, Mr. Frank is a vigorous and unashamed defender of Acorn. Yesterday he and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers sent a letter to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) requesting a "careful and objective analysis of a number of issues concerning ACORN." (Mr. Conyers voted to defund Acorn but later said he did so "accidentally.")

The investigation that Messrs. Frank and Conyers envision does not, to say the least, sound aggressive. They ask the researchers to get to the bottom of, among other things, "the extent to which ACORN has assisted [the] homeless." With respect to the child-prostitution sting, they ask the CRS to look into "conflicting allegations" about "the propriety of these activities"—by which they mean not the advice Acorn gave on getting away with crimes, but "the federal and state laws that could apply to such videotaping and distribution of conversations without the consent of all parties."

The Democratic duo also ask CRS whether the legislation defunding Acorn "could constitute an unlawful bill of attainder" by singling out the group—as if the refusal to continue providing federal subsidies is tantamount to punishing it for a crime. Such Constitutional scruples were not evident in March, when the pair joined all but six House Democrats (and 85 Republicans) in voting to impose a 90% tax on executives of AIG and other disfavored corporations....