This hilarious moment of defiant bravado from the Undead brought to you by taxpayer-funded National Public Radio and the Black Knight:
ACORN CEO Reflects On The Group’s Hard Times
ALLISON KEYES, host:
I’m Allison Keyes and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News… First, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has disbanded due to lack of funding. ACORN came under fire last September for a scornful video of ACORN employees giving illegal tax advice to two conservative activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp. The secretly taped video was posted on YouTube and viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
With its reputation tarnished, ACORN finances began to sink. Congress pulled federal funding and private donors held back cash. Joining us now to talk about the end of ACORN is Bertha Lewis, its chief executive officer. Welcome, Bertha, to the program.
Ms. BERTHA LEWIS (CEO, ACORN): Thank you, Allison, so much for having me.
KEYES: This news broke pretty late in the day yesterday. So, can you clarify it for us? Are you guys actually disbanding and why?
Ms. LEWIS: First of all, let me set the record straight. Rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KEYES: Uh-oh.
Ms. LEWIS: We are transforming, of course. I’ve been transforming this organization since June of 2008. And, yes, we’ve had our financial woes, and, yes, we are fighting an unconstitutional ban on any government funding. And, again, it is unconstitutional, but we’re transforming. Of course the financial realities forces us to do things a little bit differently. So we’ve gotten lean.
Well, there’s lean, there’s mean and then there’s dead. So, Ms. Lewis, say hello to our little friend, the Black Knight, in this classic Monty Python sketch. And then take a good look in the mirror: