The community group ACORN has come under heavy fire after two employees were filmed giving a fake hooker advice on how to commit tax fraud. Now they're thinking of suing Fox News for airing the footage. But does it matter?

Politico reports that ACORN, a group that was particularly vocal in its support for Barack Obama last year, wants to file a lawsuit against Fox News, Andrew Breitbart's websites and other right-leaning groups for airing the video, which, they claim, was doctored. Or so says ACORN organizer Bertha Lewis:

It is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist ‘filmmaker' O'Keefe and his partner in crime... And, in fact, a crime it was-our lawyers believe a felony-and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators.

Hmmm. Really? Because it seems to us the people in the video were, in fact, trying to help someone commit a crime. And that's fine. Let them pay the price.

The fact that ACORN is coming out swinging only makes the group look more corrupt than it may be. But that's only one chapter in the group's ongoing drama, for the Senate voted yesterday to prohibit the Department of Housing and Urban Development from granting the group any federal funds. Lewis was displeased, of course, and tried to paint the vote as partisan:

We're disappointed that the Senate took the rare and politically convenient step of supporting eliminating some federal funding for a single organization, one that has been the target of a multi-year political assault stemming variously from the Bush White House, Fox News, and other conservative quarters.

Sadly for Lewis, the vote was 83-7, and only a few Democrats voted to give the group all-important federal funds. It's unclear whether the group can weather these latest setbacks, but it is clear that ACORN has found itself in hot water and that its political support has boiled away.

Rather than trying to blame conservative groups for all of its problems, perhaps ACORN should take a good, hard look at its staff, actions and methods and make some changes, because, if it doesn't, there's little chance it can come out on top and not look like a bunch of paranoid activists who are shaking their fists at an invisible enemy.

Image via Michael @ NW Lens's flickr.