What Gawenda deliberately omitted was that DeLay’s so-called K Street project was no different from what the Democrats have been doing for decades, and that is screening lobbyists on the basis of party support. A journalist can quarrel with this on moral grounds, but what he cannot do as an honest journalist is ignore facts simply because they do not fit his ideological template. And that is what Gawenda did.

Come to think of it, he does it all the time. When he was editor of The Age he was only too willing to accommodate Clinton’s scandalous conduct, White House coffees with dubious characters, sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom for a meagre $200,000 or so, the Johnny Chung affair, the John Huang campaign scandal, the Charlie Trie fund raising scandal, the PLA donations, the House banking scandal, the abuse of postal franking privileges, Jim Wright’s fraud, Sandy Berger’s theft and destruction of highly classified documents, and Hillary Clinton’s election fraud. Yep, this “light on the hill” was recently fined a derisory $35,000 by the Federal Election Commission for under-reporting the cost of a Hollywood fundraiser by over $720,000. There are enough of Dem scandals to fill a library –– but you would never know this from our media.

I mention these scandals not to throw dirt on Dems but to illustrate the deceit and outright political bigotry of the media likes of Gawenda who chose to ignore these and many other scandals in favour of targeting Republicans. So it is no surprise that Gawenda is prepared to carry on in Washington where he left off in Melbourne by trying to hold the Republicans completely responsible for a scandal in which the Dems played a significant role.

Gawenda can of course protest that he wrote that about 35 per cent of the “donations made by Abramoff’s clients” went to Democrats. But this just would not do: mentioning Democrats in about a dozen words out of 1,317 is no more than window dressing on his part so he can claim objectivity. Even worse, his figure is wrong.

Now for some facts that Gawenda ignored. Forty of forty-five members of the Democrat Senate Caucus, nearly 90 per cent, took cash from Abramoff, with John Kerr pulling in almost $100,000 and Harry Reid getting $ $47,000. All in all, Dems got about 50 per cent of the money. What we have is not a Republican scandal but a Congressional scandal. Something that Gawenda inadvertently admitted.

Gawenda approvingly turned to McCain “who has been pushing for reform of lobbying rules for five years”, overlooking the fact that his campaign finance reforms not only violated the constitution they also contributed mightily to the corruption of the political process through the use of the 527 loophole that the likes of Soros ruthlessly exploited.

Even more interesting, however, is that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation deliberately exempted indian tribes from the ‘reforms’. Could this, Mr Gawenda, have anything to do with the fact that McCain is the main recipient of political donations from these tribes? This raises another question: Why does Gawenda call himself a reporter?

Sarah Baxter of London Times, wrote that “The fallout [from the scandal] could be devastating for Republicans, even though some Democrats also helped themselves to Abramoff’’s money” (Scales fall from US eyes on ‘democracy’ published in The Australian, 6 January). Forty out of forty-five Senate Dems take Abramoff’s money and she reckons that only Republicans will be affected! Me thinks this is a case of media hubris. The rest of her article was mainly an attack piece on President Bush, Tom Delay and . . . Maggie Thatcher!

Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post is another sterling example of the moral content of the Media. In his article of twelve paragraphs he managed to avoid mentioning democrats until the ninth paragraph. Naturally the preceding eight focused on Bush and Cheney (Bush cashes out of Casino Jack’s game, 6 January).

The Bush-hating Andrew West (Gawenda’s obnoxious little mate at The Age) was the most vicious of the lot. According to this paragon of media virtue all of Abramoff’s donations went to “the Bush allies in congress he bought off, is that the White House itself was the recipient of Abramoff's graft” (George Bush: crocodile tears and corruption, 5 January). As an illustration of just how balanced he is, West faulted Bush for the recent mine tragedy in West Virginia. Needless to say, The Age is known down here as a vindictive leftwing rag.

There is one final point that needs to be made. It is the Bush Justice Department that is vigorously pursuing the Abramoff investigation, despite the damage it might do to the Republican Party. Contrast this with the Clinton administration’s conduct where Janet Reno deliberately hampered investigations into its campaign-finance scandals. Let us also recall the Clinton donors who fled the country and others who took the Fifth Amendment rather than tell what they knew. These are facts that the leftwing MSMP will never publish.

Once again, the MSMP is the real scandal.

The following is more evidence that lefty journalists just cannot seem to stop lying, particularly when it comes to President Bush.

US economy: tax cuts, social security and other media lies

Gerard Jackson is Brookes’ economics editor

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