Even by the non-standards of the Associated Press, its treatment of the resignation in New Jersey of a state Assembly member is remarkable.
Twice in the space of the wire service's headline and reporter Angela Delli Santi's first three words, Pat Delany was tagged as a Republican, followed during the first two paragraphs by two descriptions of Republican Party reaction (bolds are mine):
NJ GOP lawmaker quit over wife's Carl Lewis email
A freshman Republican lawmaker resigned because his wife sent "an offensive and racist" email to the Democratic state Senate campaign of nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, a GOP official acknowledged Monday.
Pat Delany stepped down from the state Assembly this month and said he wouldn't seek a full term in November because of his wife's missive to Lewis' campaign, Burlington County Republican Chairman Bill Layton said. Delany originally cited an unspecified family issue as the reason for his abrupt resignation.
... Delany and his wife, Jennifer Delany, are white. Lewis, a political novice who's among the greatest athletes of all time, is black.
Jennifer Delany's email to Lewis' campaign said, in part, "Imagine having dark skin and name recognition and the nerve to think that equaled knowing something about politics."
Layton said Pat Delany decided to leave office to shield his three children from "a hurtful and embarrassing public spectacle involving their mother."
"Former Assemblyman Pat Delany's wife inexplicably sent an offensive and racist email in response to a routine email from Carl Lewis' campaign; her actions were inexcusable," Layton said.
Okay, Angela, we get it already. The Delanys are Republicans. (Update: A commenter notes that Ms. Delany's party ID isn't necessarily Republican, at least based on the info presented by AP.)
If anyone can identify an AP report in the past ten years where the party identification of a Democrat in trouble or affected by scandal has been brought out four times in the headline and first two paragraphs combined, I'd like to hear about it. I see no need to sit by the phone or computer waiting for a call or email which will likely never come.
The aforementioned overboard party-ID treatment might be a little more tolerable if the AP, over and above its well-documented history of Democratic Party ID avoidance for pols in criminal or personal trouble, hadn't so differently treated the resignation three weeks ago of freeholder (the Garden State's rough equivalent of a county commissioner) Louis "the Lewd" (my nickname) Magazzu over something -- sending email messages with lewd photos attached -- he and not his wife did. The number of Democrat tags in the AP headline and Beth DeFalco's first two paragraphs: zero. Magazzu finally was identified as a Dem in DeFalco's third paragraph. His party's reaction was saved for Paragraph 16.
At the end of my post on Magazzu three weeks ago, I wrote that "it could hardly be clearer" that the AP "seems to see part of its mission as covering for Democratic corruption and misconduct at every turn." The clarity has now reached the crystal level.
There's another ironic sentence in Angela Delli Santi's report concerning Olympic legend Lewis's eligibility to run for office in New Jersey:
However, records show that he voted in California through 2009, which Republicans contend made him a legal resident of that state.
If Lewis gets his way and gets to run in New Jersey because he has been ruled a resident for more than the four years required, shouldn't that mean he illegally voted in California as a non-resident in 2009?
Noted in a briefer entry this morning at BizzyBlog.com (final item at link).
