Ed O'Keefe

WashPost Devotes 18 Paragraphs to Sen. Kaine's Spanish-language Speech, Fails to Find Any Critics
By Ken Shepherd | June 12, 2013 | 6:27 PM EDT

Virginia's junior U.S. senator, Timothy Kaine (D) became the first member of the world's greatest deliberative body to deliver a speech in Spanish. The former governor did so during debate on immigration reform on the Senate floor on Tuesday.

Covering the development, Washington Post staffer Ed O'Keefe gave readers an 18-paragraph story devoted to the history-making oration in his June 12 page A2 story headlined, "Kaine's Spanish speech on Senate floor is a first." Yet nowhere in the entire article did O'Keefe find any critics to complain that, maybe, just maybe, Kaine's ploy was a cynical effort at pandering to Hispanic Americans. Neither was there any concern about the logistics of debate in a chamber that is accustomed to speech and debate being conducted for the record in English.

On Taxpayer-subsidized PBS, Liberal Reporters Lament Benghazi Won't Go Away
By Paul Bremmer | May 23, 2013 | 4:58 PM EDT

On last Friday’s Washington Week, PBS moderator Gwen Ifill brought in a panel of four liberal journalists to dissect the three scandals that have plagued the Obama administration the past couple of weeks. Predictably, most of the panelists attempted to downplay the seriousness of the Benghazi fiasco.

Midway through the Benghazi discussion, Ifill turned to The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe and posed the question that has surely been on every left-wing reporter’s mind for months: “But Ed, why is this -- why is this stuck? Why is this a story that never went away?”

WashPost Reporters Mock 'Insanity' of House GOP Push to Repeal ObamaCare, Omit Poll Showing 42% Think Law's Not on the Books
By Ken Shepherd | May 16, 2013 | 4:35 PM EDT

The House Republican caucus is an insane asylum divorced from reality.

That, essentially, was the complaint waged by Washington Post reporters David A. Fahrenthold and Ed O'Keefe in the first six paragraphs of their page A2 May 16 story, "A persistent GOP battle against health law":

WaPo Went Birther On Cruz, But They're Not Alone
By Matt Vespa | May 8, 2013 | 5:53 PM EDT

Birtherism isn't all that bad to the liberal media when a rising conservative star may be the target. Just ask the Washington Post and the New York Times, two liberal papers that devoted serious attention to the question of whether Cruz might be constitutionally ineligible for the presidency.

Post staffers Ed O’Keefe and Aaron Blake devoted an article to the matter in the May 7 paper's Style section: the question of Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency.  He was born in Canada, but had an American mother, thus making him eligible for 2016, but O'Keefe and Blake glommed on to the fact that the hypothetical objection that one must be born on American soil to be "natural born" has never been definitively adjudicated. This isn't isolated to the Washington Post.

Federal Prosecutors To Holder: Let Us Pack Heat; WaPo Relegates Story to A10
By Matt Vespa | April 5, 2013 | 4:32 PM EDT

Should federal prosecutors be allowed to pack heat?  It’s a good question given the recent assassinations of a District Attorney and his assistant in Kaufman County, Texas.  While not federal prosecutors, the recent assassinations illustrate that prosecutors have become a target for violence, particularly in federal cases where drug cartels – or terrorists – may be involved.

Recently, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) sent a letter to Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking clarification on federal policy about the ability of federal prosecutors carrying firearms on federal property. The Washington Post covered this development in Friday's paper, but buried the item on page A10. What's more, within the story itself, reporter Ed O'Keefe buried in the next-to-last paragraph the fact that the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys, which represent federal prosecutors, are supportive of the initiative that would permit their clients to carry firearms.

WashPost Likes An Unproven Conspiracy Theory...When Harry Reid Is Bashing Romney
By Tim Graham | August 3, 2012 | 8:35 AM EDT

On July 19, The Washington Post put Sen. John McCain on the front page calling out the “fringe voices” in the GOP like Rep. Michele Bachmann for circulating a “conspiracy theory” about Huma Abedin.

But on August 2, after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unleashed a conspiracy theory to The Huffington Post without a shred of evidence, charging  that Mitt Romney avoided paying taxes for ten years, the Post put that on A-5 and – in a perfect contrast – quoted absolutely no one critical of Reid, Democrat or Republican, insisting that Reid's baseless allegation "resonates with voters."  There is one glaring similarity:

Bias by Boring Headline? WashPost Gives Snoozer of a Headline to Story About Ethically-suspect Democrat in Crucial Senate Race
By Ken Shepherd | July 10, 2012 | 11:51 AM EDT

She's a seven-term Democrat representing Las Vegas in the U.S. House of Representatives and she's running in a U.S. Senate race which "observers believe could be a pickup for Democrats." But yesterday, Rep. Shelley Berkley (Nev.) received "a blow to her candidacy" when "[t]he House Ethics Committee... voted unanimously to launch a formal investigation into allegations" that the congresswoman "used her position to benefit the financial interests of her husband," Washington Post reporter Ed O'Keefe reported in a page A4 article in today's paper. Yes, that unanimous vote means that fellow Democrats want a formal investigation into Berkley.

But alas, O'Keefe was given no favors by Post editors who punished the reporter with a snoozer of a headline certain to interest hardly anyone beyond hard-core political junkies: "Nevada Rep. Berkley faces ethics investigation."

Energy IG Tells Congress the Department Was 'Ill-equipped' to Distribute Stimulus Cash; WaPo Buries on A19
By Ken Shepherd | November 3, 2011 | 6:22 PM EDT

Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman testified before a congressional committee yesterday that the department was "ill-equipped to quickly distribute billions of dollars in economic stimulus funding," reported the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe in the November 3 paper.

"Friedman's testimony was meant to summarize more than 100 investigations conducted by his office into Energy's stimulus spending. The probes have recovered $2.3 million in fraudulently obtained money and sparked five criminal prosecutions," O'Keefe noted in his 12-paragraph story, which was buried on page A19 of the Post with the bland headline "Energy Dept. called ill-suited to loan project."

"Friedman also criticized the administration for touting the existence of 'shovel-ready' projects" that did not exist, noted O'Keefe.

WashPost Celebrates End of DADT with 34-paragraph Story Largely Devoid of Dissent
By Ken Shepherd | September 21, 2011 | 10:26 AM EDT

For the second day in a row, the Washington Post celebrated the end of the 18-year-old "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, this time with a front-page center-column story that opened with the tale of a soldier who videotaped and posted to YouTube the phone call in which he announced to his father that he was gay:

'Millions In Taxes Owed by Stimulus Recipients'; WaPo Buries Story on A19
By Ken Shepherd | May 24, 2011 | 3:22 PM EDT

"Thousands of companies and nonprofits that received funds from the Obama administration’s economic stimulus program owe hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes, according to estimates in a new government report."

That's how Washington Post staffer Ed O'Keefe opened his May 24 story on the matter.

It's just a shame that the article was buried on page A19:

 

WaPo Laments 'Class War' Rhetoric Against Government Employees
By Ken Shepherd | December 21, 2010 | 3:52 PM EST

When businesses, families and individuals face tough economic times, they have to tighten the belt. Businesses lay off workers and/or trim pay and benefits while families and individuals prioritize their budgets by foregoing vacation and entertainment spending.

The government sector, not so much, and the electorate are angry about it.

Accordingly, governors and governors-elect throughout the country are talking about trimming back state employee pay and benefits as part of austerity packages to balance state budgets.

But this heightened focus on public employee pay has "Public servants feeling sting of budget rancor," today's Washington Post complained in a page A1 headline.

WaPo Defines It As 'Public Awareness' to Say GOP Will Release Terrorists and Pollute Rivers If They Win
By Tim Graham | October 15, 2010 | 6:57 AM EDT

While media liberals obsess about negative ads funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, federal worker unions are savagely attacking the Tea Party in a forthcoming radio ad campaign. "We would love to be very bipartisan, but it's hard to be bipartisan when one side is just trying to cut your throat," said John Gage of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in Friday's Washington Post.

Reporter Ed O'Keefe concluded that "the union aired a similar public awareness campaign last summer." But is it "public awareness" to associate ideas in the GOP Pledge to America -- a federal hiring freeze and spending restraint -- with releasing terrorists, ending food inspection, and polluting rivers? O'Keefe relayed the script:

"The Republican tea party Pledge to America says, 'Cut taxes for the rich and cut government,' " AFGE President John Gage says in the ad. "Some have even said, 'Close the government down.' Then what? Food and mine inspection - gone. Forget about border patrol or keeping terrorists locked up. And returning veterans? Give them a cheap voucher instead of a quality VA hospital. Let's dump in the rivers and pollute the air again."