By John W. Lillpop
Attorney General Eric Holder is to justice what Nancy Pelosi is to fiscal responsibility: Less is good; none at all is “progressive” paradise!
Holder’s latest outrage involves ACORN, the street bullies and tramps that used “Chicago tactics” to elect Barack Obama, including voter fraud, illegal campaign practices, prostitution, and probably much worse.
As reported, in part, at the NY Times:
“WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress enacted a law banning the government from providing funds to the group.
“The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it.
“Mr. Barron said he had based his conclusion on the statute’s phrase “provided to.” This phrase, he said, has no clearly defined meaning in the realm of government spending — unlike such words as “obligate” and “expend.”
“Citing dictionary and thesaurus entries, he said “provided to” could be interpreted as meaning only instances in which an official was making “discretionary choices” about whether to give the group money, rather than instances in which the transfer of funds to Acorn was required to satisfy existing contractual obligations.
“Since there are two possible ways to construe the term “provided to,” Mr. Barron wrote, it makes sense to pick the interpretation that allows the government to avoid breaching contracts.”
Can you imagine? Our Justice Department is wasting valuable taxpayer money debating “provided to” and other word games when the very essence of American democracy is in peril.
Besides, I thought we had moved beyond the Clintonesque practice of parsing and pinching every word and phrase as Slick did with his infamous, “Depends on what the definition of Is is,” which was finally answered by a white spot on a blue dress.
Come on, Mr. Barron, get real!
Why in the world should the US government knowingly fund a group that worked to subvert the rule of law? How in the hell is that a difficult interpretation?
Still, I suppose that this sort of excrement is to be expected from an administration that wants to prosecute and punish former President George W. Bush for using enhanced interrogation techniques to save the City of Los Angeles from KSM and fellow terrorists!
What the hell?
