The Obamistas and Righteologues share a key narrative agreement regarding Barack Obama's years as a community organizer.  The fictional narrative works for both.  On the left, his time in the trenches validates his claim to be a man of the people putting his values of community into action.  On the right, his time as a CO proves his leftism and triggers the now standard litany/rant.  All of this nets out as a plus plus for both sides.  Never mind that both are indulging in seriously phony claims.  
As Michael Gecan makes clear in his brilliant little book, After America's Midlife Crisis, Obama wasn't much influenced by the ethos or values of community organizing.  After all, he spent less time in that role as a low level street worker than in college.  The reality is that he was far more a creature of Chicago's Daley Machine politics and the rarified atmosphere of the University of Chicago's constitutional law environs.

The Righteologues trump up Obama's brief stint as a community organizer for their own demonizing purposes.  Dragged in to this fiction is the falsification of Saul Alinsky's track record, organizational innovations and legacy. 

A pictorial narrative!  That must be Lenin looming in the background.  Or is it Karl Marx?  No matter.  A Red's a Red.
Saul Alinsky remains a target for right wing ideologues - righteologues - more than 40 years after his death.  Righteologue bloggers and radio talkers talk dirty about Alinsky to make the case that whoever associated with him, the organizational network he inspired - IAF - or anyone who attended IAF National Training is a commie, red, lefty or at least a pinko.  

It's all a bit bizarre and merits further inquiry.  What's up with the obsessive invocation of Saul Alinsky?

Some partial explanations are obvious.  Barack Obama attended Ten Day IAF Training in the mid nineteen eighties so tarring IAF with left wingism reinforces a narrative about the President.  In this vein, Alinsky, Alinskyites, Obama, big government liberals become part of a seamless narrative fantasy/conspiracy.   Of course at the moment Obama is their villain in chief.  

Still, the venom directed at Alinsky himself after all these years raises a deeper question.  What was it about Alinsky that triggers such rabidity?

My thinking is that Saul Alinsky was a far more provocative agitator than glib claims about his location on the left/right political spectrum imply.  The fact is he was neither "left" or "right".  His core teaching about the "Iron Rule" - never do for people what they can do for themselves defies catagorization, perhaps leans more right than left.
His opposition to the reelection of FDR certainly places him in this direction as well.  Most important, Saul Alinsky was not a big government guy.  Far from it.  In two of his mmost famous quotes he described Lyndon Johnson's Great Society as "political pornography" and later "welfare colonialism".  This is certainly not the language of a big government liberal.  

So I repeat the question from a different angle.  If Alinsky does not fit the righteologue narrative very well why does he remain central to it?
One place to look for an answer is in the psyches of the righteogues themselves.  A characteristic of Alinsky's organizing and all of those following in his IAF footsteps is a clear determination to work across racial lines.  TWO, Fight Kodak, Buffalo, CSO were all characterized by African American and/or Latino primary constituency and leadership.

Modern generation IAF organizations have continued in this vein invariably bringing together disparate racial and ethnic groupings.  When the verbal subterfuge is stripped away, righteologues butt up against the inescapable, namely, that however they may jabber on about freedom and patriotism when it comes to crossing racial and ethnic lines they are miserable failures.  In the absence of this intention and capacity what kind of freedom and patriotism are they really advancing?  Only the Shadow knows for sure. 

Somehow Saul Alinsky has penetrated the psyche of dimwits, bumblers and ideological fetishists like the blogger, Wayne Allen Root, who says: 
"Saul Alinsky is one of Obama’s heroes and mentors. His book “Rules for Radicals,” is Obama’s bible, even though Alinsky’s masterpiece is dedicated to Lucifer, the Devil. Funny, I’ve never heard the media mention that little fact.

"Alinsky’s philosophy is to destroy and discredit any conservative who dares to question you by demonizing him. The strategy is to call him vile names and tell lies, because the end justifies the means. Humiliate and intimidate them so badly, they will hide under the covers, never to be seen again..."

Root specializes in getting it wrong while praising his own intelligence and patriotism to the high heavens.  He conflates Lucifer and the Devil which is ignorant but serves his purpose.  Then goes on to claim that Alinsky's philosophy was to destroy and discredit "conservatives" which never was Alinsky's target or method.  

This poor blogger should hide under the covers and give his readers a break.  

More on the depth psychology of folks talking dirty about Alinsky later.

There's a great deal to be said about the connection of President Obama to the Alinsky organizing tradition. While he did attend IAF ten day training in the mid eighties and worked in Chicago at the street level for about three years with Gamaliel (an organizational network not directly affiliated with IAF), he didn't organize long enough to master the concepts or practice the craft to a high level.  As my colleague Michael Gecan points out elsewhere, Obama was formed far more by the Hyde Park/Daley machine/constitutional law ethos than broad based community organizing.  To my knowledge, as President, Obama has never sought out IAF organizers and organizations since his election.  This is especially ironic in light of the fact that IAF affiliate GBIO was the key grassroots/institutional player in the Massachusett's health care legislation after which Obamacare was modeled.  In many respects the Mass plan is superior.

Huge challenges confront Alinsky's legacy as the community organizing world seeks to re-imagine the work going forward.  Some of the growth that seems to be happening in the field has a downside that threatens to corrupt the entire enterprise.  To the extent that institutionally based organizing caters to monied interests allied with one of the political parties, the missional integrity that Alinsky cherished is sabotaged by electoral opportunism.  

The antidote is deeper local ownership that sacrifices some revenue streams in favor of a more authentic reflection of local interests.

My initial motivation for addressing the phony claims of Alinsky detractors was sparked by Sarah Palin's assault on "community organizing" during her vice presidential nominating speech at the Republican Convention in 2008.  What made her speech especially notable was the fact that her running mate - Senator John McCain - had direct, positive experience with an IAF organization in Arizona.  Since then a variety of politicians and media personalities have piled on with a repetitious litany of attack lines.

While Palin may have merely been reading what her speech writer authored, she contributed to her own loss of credibility along with that of Senator McCain.  While to his credit Senator McCain ultimately parted company with Palin, a noxious and untruthful tone was established.