After hearing about the recent ACORN “video scandal” (whereby James O’Keefe, a conservative version of Michael Moore, walked into various ACORN offices posing as a pimp together with a young woman posing as a hooker, and requested info on how to bilk the government of home purchase subsidies), I couldn’t help but wonder what Saul Alinsky would have said.

The late, great Alinsky was of course the father of community organizing and made his name vilifying the powerful and the rich. His first reaction, no doubt, would have been to bring fire down upon Glenn Beck and FOX News for airing the videos. He certainly would have cast them as lackeys of the wealthy, and would have defended the hapless ACORN workers who provided helpful suggestions on how a hooker and a pimp could put one over on the feds. He would have reminded us in no uncertain terms about the oppressed American underclass, which includes a lot of prostitutes and criminals.

Alinsky was a firebrand, the kind that is sorely missed today. Community organizing is not what it used to be; one of their own, Barack Obama, has become the most politically powerful man in the country and now has to compromise (and willingly DOES compromise) with the interests of the rich and the economically powerful (e.g., the much criticized bail-out of Wall Street). There was hardly anyone left who believed in the cause enough to defend ACORN on this one. Ah, the wages of dependence upon federal grants, of being co-opted.

However, I do think that Alinsky would have to had admired what O’Keefe did, which was to take Alinsky’s rulebook and apply his own tactics. O’Keefe has said outright that he has read Alinsky’s famous “Rules for Radicals” book and was inspired by those rules in what he did. Here are some of those “rules”; it seems pretty clear that O’Keefe’s ideas on how to wage war against the liberals is indeed true to Alinsky.

RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” (Obviously, ACORN is not an expert in protecting its grant funding by following all the rules).

RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. (You can bet that other conservative commandos have been inspired are planning similar sting operations).

RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Good timing — the videos hit just as ACORN’s absentee voter fraud was becoming old news.)

RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (A video sting obviously was new to ACORN; obviously no one there thought while watching Michael Moore that someone could turn the table).

RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. Perception is reality. (As FOX News well knows.)

RULE 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (O’Keefe nailed a handful of devoted ACORN workers, people honestly devoted to helping the poor, and made them look like criminals in the eyes of the public).

Yes, I believe that Alinsky would grudgingly give O’Keefe a “well done” for those videos.