Matthew Vadum's adventure on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"

Back on Oct. 30, 2008, I appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" to talk about ACORN and community organizers.

Here is a link to the video (the show's website won't allow embeds).

About a month or more before the air date, I traveled to New York City to tape a segment with John Oliver. Being in hostile territory (ideologically) I thought of the nastiest things I could say about ACORN and community organizers and I said them. There is no point, after all, in going on a left-wing show and playing along with the puppet masters. (Some conservatives criticized me for doing the show. Alas, it's impossible to please everyone.)

Everything I said had a basis in truth except for a few comments that were obviously satirical in nature. It is in fact true that mainstream media outlets have reported that ACORN and other so-called community organizations such as the NAACP Voter Fund have used crack cocaine and cigarettes as payoffs in the voter registration process, so I wasn't saying anything new.

Little did I know the show planned to juxtapose my statements with reaction shots from Bertha Lewis, ACORN's chief organizer at the time. (When the segment was shot, the producer said he wasn't sure who else was going to be interviewed for the package.) Because Lewis is a black woman, this led to some of the more idiotic leftists accusing me of racism in the absence of any evidence. The cry of "racist" is the last refuge of a desperate left-winger and tends to suggest that a conservative is doing his or her job properly. If they're not attacking you, that's likely because you're missing the target.

Just as when Andrew Breitbart summoned the courage a few months later to go into the lions' den when he appeared on Bill Maher's show on HBO (facing off against pseudo-intellectual race-baiting demagogue Michael Eric Dyson) conservatives have to be willing to take some heat in order to be effective. Go deep into liberal territory and do some damage. Don't be worried about getting sprayed with slime. You might even win some converts.

As Epictetus taught, "If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid."

That really says it all.