A Is For ACORN, C Is For Cookie

Any fan of Cookie Monster on Sesame Street knows that “C” is for cookie.

But at the Obama White House, “A” may be for acorn — as in acorn cookies served at Monday’s annual Christmas party.

The chocolate cookies shaped like an acorn were quite a hit with Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

“I didn’t expect to see such stark symbolism,” King said in an e-mail.

President Obama worked with the community organizing group ACORN in the mid-90s. [Or possibly even longer — Ed] But now ACORN faces a host of allegations related to voter fraud in the 2008 election and has been weakened by an undercover expose that shows employees offering tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute.

The irony of the White House dishing out acorn-shaped chocolate cookies seemed a little, well, “nutty” to King. The Iowa Republican is one of the loudest voices calling for Congress to investigate ACORN.

King pocketed several of the acorn cookies at the White House soiree and even stowed a few at home in his freezer. King even delivered a real acorn to House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, D-Mich., in an effort to launch a dialogue about the organization’s legal woes.

“Bill Clinton redefined a two and a three-letter word,” King said, a reference to Clinton’s denial of the Lewinsky scandal . “But from the man who wrote ‘The Audacity of Hope,’ we were served the very redefinition of the word ‘audacity.'”

Amazingly, after railing against new media in their recent “Decade From Hell” issue, Time credits new media for bringing the ACORN scandal to light:

Posing as a pimp and a prostitute, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles secretly filmed employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in different offices around the U.S. who were apparently willing to assist in prostitution, tax evasion and, in at least one case, human smuggling. The organization fired several of the offending employees, but the toothpaste was out of the tube and all over YouTube. The Senate and the House of Representatives voted against further funding for ACORN, and the IRS and U.S. Census Bureau terminated contracts with the group. The scandal led to a further miniscandal in which accusations were leveled at the media for ignoring the story.

The post it titled “ACORN Falls”, but as the above symbolism highlights, it hasn’t happened yet, and the Obama White House is still betting the story will go away.