Breaking Previous Pledge, Democrats Won’t Disclose Convention Donors Until October; WaPo Buries Story

August 22nd, 2012 7:29 PM

The so-called “people’s convention” is scheduled to commence on Labor Day in Charlotte, but the “most open and accessible (convention) ever” won’t be sticking to the theme of transparency after all.

Despite an earlier vow to reveal all contributors, Democratic officials are now refusing to do so until federal disclosure documents have to be filed in mid-October.

To its credit, the Washington Post recognized the humorous contradiction and a shameless  double standard by running this story in the August 22 print edition. Unfortunately, the liberal-leaning paper buried T.W. Farnum’s report on A7.

The front page included a story about Facebook’s IPO debacle, and a fond farewell to a deceased homeless man who suffered from schizophrenia. Granted, both were interesting but hardly front page-worthy. The dominant story was “Akin refuses to quit race: Senate candidate says he’ll focus on abortion.”

The Post found room for an article on a matter of embarrassment for Republicans, but not a corresponding story that makes Democrats look bad by exposing their hypocrisy.

Farnum pointed out right away that this is the same party that petitioned conservative interest groups to reveal their own donor lists, and the same administration that keeps criticizing Mitt Romney for not releasing more tax returns.

He even cited a recent e-mail from Obama’s campaign supervisor Jim Messina that petitioned for more honesty and integrity on the conservative side. “They have a vested interest in being able to spend millions anonymously to influence our elections,” he wrote.

This was before Charlotte's host committee had to remove self-righteous language from its website that patted itself on the back for being more honest and upfront than the GOP. Liberal critics may have slammed Republicans for their corporate fundraising, but they never made the same sanctimonious promises the Democrats did on the matter.

Fortunately for the Democrats, their allies in the liberal media will largely ignore the story, or report the matter but keep it from being as big of a story as it could’ve otherwise been.