Time: Kilpatrick Quitting Helps Obama, Yet Media Largely Ignored His Party Label

In "Kilpatrick Out, a Boost for Obama?", Time's Amy Sullivan explores the question of whether the resignation of the Democratic Detroit mayor will help the Obama ticket's chances in the swing state of Michigan. Sullivan relays that the Obama camp is "thrilled" by the end of the Kilpatrick saga, which had "damaged an already weakened Democratic brand in Michigan."

Yet as NewsBusters has docmented time and again, the national media has largely ignored the Kilpatrick scandal, and often omitted his Democratic party affiliation and Democratic superdelegate status when it has.

Indeed, even local papers with undoubtedly great familiarity with Kilpatrick's Democratic Party credentials have ignored his party label in news reporting. From my colleague Jacob Lybbert's blog entry earlier today:

At long last, the soon-to-be erstwhile Democratic mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, pleaded guilty and will resign as mayor. The Detroit Free Press reports all of the salacious details--except the singular detail that Kilpatrick is a Democrat.

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NewsBusters writer Tom Blumer chronicled the New York Times's inability to name Kilpatrick's party, but the NYT & Free Press aren't alone in their decision to keep Kwame's party out of the ongoing scandal. CNN's report on the case also fails to note Kilpatrick's party affiliation. In describing Governor Jennifer Granholm's foot-dragging inability to act on the Detroit city council's recommendation that she remove Kilpatrick, CNN failed to point out that she, too, is a Democrat. What's this? A Democrat failing to remove another Democrat from office? Good thing prosecutors did their job so Granholm wasn't forced to do hers.