When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) asked the FBI to investigate how a recording of a private meeting at his campaign headquarters in Kentucky was secretly made and then released to Mother Jones, the reaction from Washington DC political reporters was curious , to say the least. At a press conference on the matter Tuesday, reporters pressed him on what was said about his presumed opponent in next year’s senate race, actress Ashley Judd.
McConnell pointed out that liberal groups in Kentucky had earlier maligned his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, and attacked her for her Chinese ethnicity, and had now illegally recorded a private meeting. Rather than taking the hint that maybe the offensive and illegal behavior from the senator’s political opponents might be more newsworthy, reporters instead continued to press McConnell on whether it was “appropriate” for his campaign to discuss the possibility of addressing Judd’s past bouts with depression in the anticipated campaign.
This morning on “Mornings on the Mall” on WMAL-FM in Washington, DC, I asked Washington Examiner columnist Byron York why the media, after being so influenced by the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, would not have an interest in pursuing the potentially illegal secret recording of McConnell’s campaign office. York, who has spent decades covering Capitol Hill and has worked with DC reporters on a daily basis, answered that “media bias” is really the only explanation.
Listen to the interview here: