Michelle Malkin: Democratic 'lynch mobs' are attacking ALEC

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin is accusing Democratic "lynch mobs" of attacking the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Republican donors in an effort to distract voters from the nation's economic problems.

"They've got gimmicks like the Buffett rule, they're attacking 'evil oil companies,' 'evil Republicans' that want dirty air an water and don't care about kids or old people," Fox News host Sean Hannity complained to Malkin on Wednesday. "They're elevating controversies like the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, Sandra Fluke case."

"America has been collectively a slow learner when it comes to [President] Barack Obama," Malkin opined. "We were frustrated, you and I, trying to get the message out in 2008, and that is why we're trying overtime, redoubling our efforts to vet the president, not only his record over the last four years, but everything that led up to his grooming, the marinating in this leftist, progressive ideology."

"And it's going to get worse," she continued. "The fact that we have so many of these little lynch mobs that are going after Republican donors, Republican legislative associations like ALEC, and are trying to use as many ad hominem attacks as possible."

"The president is diminishing himself by allowing himself to run a campaign like this," Hannity agreed. "He's diminishing the office, diminishing himself, seemingly petty. And I don't know if that's going to work -- I don't see that working for him in the long term."

"Unfortunately, we have to battle a public education system that brainwashes these Obama zombies -- to use Jason Mattera's great term -- of these young generations. And President Obama has played these young people like a fiddle. He goes on comedy shows and does the slow jam to try and lull them into this sense of success."

ALEC has been under rhetorical fire from liberal groups since the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, whose defense hinges upon a claim of self defense under the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which ALEC pushed in other states.

In response to the public outcry over ALEC’s support for the laws, the group said it had eliminated a task force that focused on non-economic issues, but it wasn’t enough to keep a number of corporate clients, like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Proctor & Gamble and Mars, Inc. from leaving.

ALEC has since called the backlash part of an “intimidation campaign” against its members. In a statement Monday, ALEC legal counsel Alan P. Dye called Common Cause a “liberal front group” attacking ALEC because of differences in “philosophical terms.”

The advocacy group Common Cause, which has been organizing boycotts against ALEC's corporate members, has filed an official complaint with the IRS charging that ALEC was lobbying in violation of its tax exempt status.

Watch the video below from Fox News' Hannity, broadcast April 25, 2012.

-- With earlier reporting by Stephen C. Webster

(h/t: Media Matters)