Below is a truly astonishing piece of C-Span video with Politico reporter Jonathan Allen:



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Now watch this “60 Minutes” report and tell me there’s not a story worth pursuing here.

Obviously, Jonathan Allen isn’t at all interested in how Nancy Pelosi received access to an exclusive IPO courtesy of Visa or the wild coincidence surrounding Speaker Boehner’s health care stock trades or how this legal insider trading members of Congress are using to enrich themselves might be having some sort of corrupting influence. Why would he? He knows these people.

Move along.

Nothing to see here.

Trust us.

When I first saw the 60 Minutes report, I was flabbergasted to discover that Congress is legally allowed to use non-public information in their stock and land deals. In other words, our own public servants have an advantage over those they serve when it comes to the game of winning and losing in the world of financial speculation. This, of course, manages to answer a ton of questions as to how the Mr. Smiths who go to Washington frequently return home as Daddy Warbucks.

What really concerned me, though, was how this could have a corrosive effect on legislation. It’s bad enough (and infuriating and outrageous) that our elected representatives have loop-holed themselves from insider trading laws, but what about those who angle legislation against what’s best for the country in favor of their own portfolio or whatever land is available to purchase? Other than putting pressure on Congress to end that loophole and put their portfolios in a blind trust, that’s obviously where this story should lead to next.

And note the language I’m using here. You don’t hear me talking about liberals or Democrats or the left. Because this isn’t about partisan politics. This is about a corrupt political class exempting themselves from the laws you and I are forced to abide by as they feather their own nests.

And yet, instead of being curious and skeptical and eager to do the good work of holding those in power accountable, Politico goes even further than to ignore the story. If you watched Jonathan Allen’s disgraceful appearance on C-Span above, you can see quite clearly that the memo has likely gone out to kill the story and deny it any traction by both ignoring it and wrist-flicking it away as silly.

Why?

In the vernacular of our esteemed journalist class, let me “raise some questions” as to how Politico might profit by ignoring and shooting this particular story down:

1. A high-powered Democrat (Pelosi) could get caught up in this and if you’re currently in bed and cuddling up next to MSNBC in order to increase your Web hits, that might not be such a good idea.

2. Upsetting those in power might damage your access to those in power. Therefore, in order to protect that access you protect the status quo.

3. Upsetting those in power might cost you significant advertising revenue. Who knows how many hundreds of million of dollars in political advertising is about to be spent in the upcoming election year. If Politico starts beating up the incumbents who have more money than the challengers, it could cost them dearly.

4. Politico is jealous it didn’t break the story and therefore it will pretend it doesn’t exist. Politico is infamous for their arrogance.

My guess is that Politico is motivated by a mixture of all four, and the screenshot below of Politco‘s front page (taken less than 25 minutes ago) provides a very good example of how they operate:

The stories circled in red are all hits against Herman Cain. As we all know, two weeks ago it was Politico that broke what ended up being a mostly nothing story about the allegations of sexual harassment hurled at Cain over a decade ago and all centered around Chicago. Hrm?? That non-story was then followed up by another 200 or so Politico stories that raged in a frenzy against Cain with the obvious goal of taking the man out.

That wasn’t journalism–it was a political hit and no less than three left-of-center journalist watchdogs questioned the merits of Politico’s story and their bizarrely obsessive follow ups.

Now go ahead and take another look at the Politico front page posted above. You’ll notice that while there are four featured Cain stories there’s not a single one about last night’s 60 Minutes story on congressional insider trading.

This is how Politico helps the likes of the Huffington Post and Media Matters to kill a scandal they don’t want to see gain any traction.

Herman Cain and especially his 9-9-9 plan represent an existential threat to the status quo, so he must be annihilated at any cost. This is why a story about nothing more than allegations was positioned, rolled out and coordinated by Politico as though it were “Watergate 2.”

Last night’s 60 Minutes story represents the same kind of existential threat, the kind that if you start reporting and digging and following up on could cost you Beltway access, friendships, favors, and advertising dollars.

Who watches the watchmen?