A Couple Minor Media Points

When writing a story about how unions and their allies outspent Wal-Mart in the period before the Maryland health care vote, wouldn't it be worthwhile to note Wal-Mart's $1,000 a plate fundraiser for Maryland's Governor, especially given that Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich got free time in the story to accuse the unions of muscling through the legislation. Also, while I'm talking about this article what is up with Delegate Joseph Minnick (check the bottom of page two of the online story)? I'm sure the intentions were good, but the quote where he says he refunds Wal-Mart's money because he didn't vote with them makes it sound like he has a money back guarantee on bribes. Strange.

Meanwhile, if you haven't read about this yet, you should have. The AP has a big story about the relationship between Harry Reid's office and Jack Abramoff. It turns out that Reid's office met with Abramoff's folks repeatedly on a Marianas bill where Reid not only voted for legislation that Abramoff disliked, he co-sponsored it. Yup. Pretty corrupt. The rest of the story is that Reid went to bat against a couple Indian casinos. That's a surprise. Reid represents Western America's gambling capital. Of course he votes against competition. That's called his constituents' interest. This is the amazing thing about the scandals. Michigan's Democratic Senators are supposedly as corrupt for helping the Saginaw Chippewas as Conrad Burns is. The difference, of course, is that those Michigan Democrats represent the Chippewas and thus have a clear interest in, you know, representing them. A clear interest that doesn't involve $136,500 in campaign contributions. But, hey, let's keep in mind, this is a bipartisan scandal. Yeah right. It's as bipartisan as Bush's budget busting tax cuts. It's a farce perpetrated by GOP hacks.

Meanwhile, it's worth noting that while more Democrats are hopping on the public financing bandwagon, John "Bipartisan" McCain is attacking the idea.

--Matt Singer

COMMENTS: Go to Sirota's Working Assets site to comment on this entry