(2008-09-06) Obama Community Organizer

Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani mocked Barack Obama for working as a Community Organizer after college.

Joe Klein finds out what that specific job entailed. Obama was working for a group of churches (CCHD) that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed--job training, help with housing and so forth--from the local government. It was, dare I say it, the Lord's work--the sort of mission Jesus preached (as opposed to the War On Iraq, which Palin described as a "task from God.")

Fred Wilson quotes Douglas Rushkoff and John Heilemann.

On the other hand:

• note that CCHD funds ACORN - In 1999-2000, CCHD granted a total of $517,000 to 17 state and local chapters of ACORN - which Obama has an ongoing relationship with.

• he wasn't a volunteer, he was a non-Catholic paid by a Catholic organization to help people get more money from the government.