FE! COMRADE OBAMA ATTACKS FOX NEWS!!!

It was with politics in mind, Mr. Breitbart says, that he chose to release the first Acorn video on Sept. 10, the day after President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress. His rationale: "I am going to do what John McCain did the day after the Invesco speech," Mr. Obama's address to the Democratic National Convention, by announcing the choice of Sarah Palin. "I am going to suck the air out of the room on the health-care debate. That was intentional."

Mr. Breitbart's work on the story has centered on a sophisticated public-relations campaign. He placed exclusives not only with Fox, but with local newspapers in the cities where the videos were made. On his site, he published the raw videos and complete transcripts, lest he and Mr. O'Keefe be accused of manipulation through editing.

The crux of the strategy was the timing of the video releases. "Every step of the way, we wanted to plant traps" for Acorn and its defenders, he says. The Baltimore video was the first because it was "the most clean-cut of explicating their offer and Acorn's ability to help them with the transaction through their intricate networking of tax assistance and street-level advice-giving on how to avoid the law." Acorn called the video "false and defamatory" and accused Fox of "racist coverage," but also fired the employees who appeared in it.

The video from Washington followed on Sept. 11. Acorn asserted that it was "slanted to misinform the public," although again it swiftly sacked the employees involved.

Acorn also claimed that Mr. O'Keefe and Ms. Giles had been rebuffed in four cities, including New York and San Diego. But on Sept. 14, the New York Post reported that in fact the pair had received offers of help from Acorn's Brooklyn office. "It was like, Bam! You're a liar again," says Mr. Breitbart. Two days later, the San Diego video came out (the employee there reportedly called police two days after the visit, though no police report was filed). In between was the San Bernardino, Calif., video, featuring Tresa Kaelke, who is white. So much for racism.

The Obama administration was quicker than much of the national media in responding to the scandal. On Sept. 11, the Census Bureau announced that it was dumping Acorn as a "partner" in promoting next year's enumeration. The first mention of the sting on a network evening newscast—CBS's—did not come until Sept. 15, the day after the Senate voted 83-7 to deny the group federal housing funds. The New York Times reported it for the first time a day after that. (The Journal had cited it in a Sept. 12 news story.) On Sept. 27, Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt published a column in which the paper's managing editor acknowledged having been "slow off the mark" but denied that political bias played any role.

Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service joined the Census Bureau in cutting ties with Acorn, and Congress voted several more times to defund the group, including a measure to deny it all federal money, which passed the House 345-75 on Sept. 17. (This and similar provisions are amendments to various bills, which must be reconciled and signed before becoming law.)

The next Monday, Mr. Breitbart followed a dictum of Saul Alinsky, whose 1971 book, "Rules for Radicals," is the bible of left-wing community organizers: "A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag." Figuring that a sixth Acorn video wouldn't have much impact, he shifted to a different scandal. He published the full transcript of an August conference call in which officials from federal agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the White House's Office of Public Engagement, urged federally subsidized artists to produce propaganda on behalf of Mr. Obama's legislative initiatives. Patrick Courrielche, an artist and Big Hollywood contributor, had recorded the call. By week's end Yosi Sergant, who had organized the call as the NEA's director of communications, was out of a job.

Mr. Breitbart claims victory, and in extravagant terms: "At every step of the way, we were correct. At every step of the way, the mainstream media took the lies of Acorn. At every step of the way, the mainstream media attempted to cover up for Acorn. . . . If they think that Acorn or the Democratic Party or the NEA or the Office of Public Engagement is the primary target, they couldn't be more wrong. It is the Democrat-media complex. It is the mainstream media. No jury would need more evidence at this point. The Clark Hoyts of the world should just put their pens down and retire right now and walk away. They lost."