Faced with a groundbreaking investigation by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer that reveals corrupt self-dealing on both sides of the aisle in Congress, the mainstream media had two options:
- Criticize both sides in proportion to their involvement.
- Defend both sides, in order to protect Democrats in power.
Yesterday, Politico chose #2. Today, Huffington Post has joined it, defending the Republican speaker it routinely derides, in order to protect the former Democrat speaker that many of its contributors hope to reinstate.
As Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters points out:
As far-left outlets like the Huffington Post applaud what’s happening with the Occupy Wall Street movement around the country, you would think they’d welcome the sunlight being brought by Schweizer and 60 Minutes exposing a little known way that lawmakers use their access to further their own nests.
Pelosi is said to be worth $35 million. If she is using her position in Congress to add to her riches, shouldn’t the Huffington Post, as an unapologetic supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement, applaud efforts to end such graft as it’s being exposed?
Consider that conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart’s website Big Government has been all over Schweizer’s revelations concerning Alabama Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus’s trades during the financial crisis of 2008 with Breitbart himself calling for Bachus to resign as a result.
Evidenced by NewsBusters’ neutral piece on this matter published Sunday evening as well as the even-handed approach taken here, it is clear that two prominent conservative websites aren’t trying to protect politicians on our side of the aisle who might be exploiting this loophole.
Instead, it is clear that a fuller review of this issue should be supported by liberals and conservatives alike without the seemingly requisite circling of the wagons that normally happens in such instances.
Obviously, the folks at the Huffington Post don’t agree, and rather than taking the side of the 99 percenters they so enthusiastically support when blaming all the nation’s problems on Wall Street, they are certainly not willing to shed light on those on Capitol Hill aiding and abetting the income inequality they so revile if said individuals are in the ranks of their sacred cows.
“HuffPo” may have joined the Occupy movement in attacking the “1 percent.” But when it comes to the real economic and political elite in America–the Washington elite–it’s clear whose side the Huffington Post is on.