ABC Anchor Charles Gibson Emcees Big-Money Fundraiser for Edward Kennedy Institute

The Washington Post's Reliable Source gossip column reported on Friday that ABC anchor Charles Gibson was the emcee for a high-dollar fundraiser (thick with liberal Democrats) for the latest Boston building to honor the Kennedys, the so-called "royal family" of American politics: the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.

Once again, ABC News seems to care not one ounce about the appearance of Democratic bias this creates. 

Here's how the Post unveiled the liberal-Democrat guest list:

The ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton was thick with VIPs: Kennedy's widow, Vicki, and his children; Caroline Kennedy and her husband, Ed Schlossberg; Cabinet secretaries Eric Holder, Hilda Solis, Kathleen Sebelius and Janet Napolitano; Sens. Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Carl Levin, Paul Kirk and John Kerry (who recently slipped $20.million for the institute into a defense bill); Speaker Nancy Pelosi; ABC's Charlie Gibson, who served as emcee; and deep-pocket donors from the health-care industry, law firms and labor unions.

Post gossip columnists Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger said it wasn't true that the fundraiser called for million-dollar tables:

We know the Kennedys are money magnets, but still couldn't believe that Wednesday's dinner for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate featured tables selling for -- wait for it -- $1 million.

Drat! Turns out that rumor wasn't true, although most reports of the exclusive evening with President Obama included the stratospheric amount. "I couldn't fathom where that came from," institute president Peter Meade told us Thursday.

Well, we can: Several of the 240 guests at the private thank-you dinner have already ponied up a million or more for the late senator's pet project.

The Post says the Kennedy Institute will go on the campus of the University of Massachusetts, but not in Amherst, but in Boston: the EMK Institute's web site says.

The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate will be located on the campus of the University of Massachusetts, adjacent to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library on Columbia Point in Boston. The Institute, UMASS, and the JFK Library will work closely together to take advantage of their proximity and enhance the strengths of all three institutions.

Enhancing the Kennedy legacy -- apparently just another job for an anchorman at ABC News.