Most recently it has been pushed by Fox News contributor Jim Pinkerton in a blog post entitled "The Devil Is In the Details." The rumor goes something like this: Barack Obama learned organizing techniques from community organizing pioneer Saul Alinsky. Alinsky wrote in his book Rules for Radicals the following dedication: “Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgement of the very first radical, from all our legends, mythology, and history … the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer.”
Ann Coulter wrote a column about this rumor last month.
On its Face, it is to be ridiculed
Pinkerton's post, and the rumor itself have been lampooned on the left, not only in the comments section of the post itself, but also on left-wing blogs like Crooks and Liars. The logic behind the smear is worthy of ridicule, "Obama learned from a man who once praised Lucifer, therefore Obama is connected to Lucifer."
The Jeremiah Wright association had some truth to it, in that Obama DID attend Trinity United Church of Christ for twenty years. The Bill Ayers smear was half true in that the two of them DID serve on a charity board together.
But THIS association falls apart very quickly when considering that Obama's relationship to Alinsky is minimal at best. Obama arrived in Chicago to work as an organizer in 1987, fifteen years after Alinsky died. his colleagues worked with Obama during that time and Obama applied Alinsky's techniques of street-level democracy in his work.
Figment of Imagination
As much as this attack has been made fun of for its logical absurdity, one thing has been missed in all of this: Alinsky never said the quote mentioned above.
For starters, the dedication in Rules for Radicals is to his wife, Irene. Another place to find such a quote would be in the prologue of the book, but it isn't there.
Both Pinkerton and Coulter say that the disputed quote appears in the "dedication" of the first edition of Rules for Radicals. An article pushing the attack on American Patrol, which Pinkerton links to in his post says that the book "opens" with the quote.
In fact, the book opens with Alinsky comparing young activists at the time to early Christians; they want to change the system, but have no clue as to how to change it effectively. Rules for Radicals, he writes, is for them, as a guide to make change effectively.
Pinkerton and Coulter heard the rumor from someone else and, not doing research to confirm it, printed the falsehood anyway. Because it's more important for them to attack Barack Obama than to tell the truth to their readers.
However, the Patrol article does quote Radicals accurately when it quotes the prologue, "The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."
Robert O'Connor - I am a professional amateur. Everything I do, I do it out of love, not money. I'm also flat broke.
