To give you an idea of the lengths the Huffington Post will go to defend liberal politicians those involved in the website revere, a front page piece on Monday took the side of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Oh.) in order to give cover to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Inside the front page headline story "60 Misses: CBS Gets It Wrong On Boehner, Pelosi Stock Trading," HuffPo reporter Ryan Grim went where seemingly no HuffPo reporter has gone before:
A "60 Minutes" investigation of stock trading by members of Congress singled out House Speaker John Boehner and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi as having personally profited from investments into companies whose interests were before Congress. The investigation makes a strong case that members of Congress have the ability to profit in the market from non-public information, but in the cases of Boehner and Pelosi the claims made by "60 Minutes" fall short under scrutiny.
Honest graft, as "60 Minutes" calls it, is a serious problem in Washington, with a massive industry called "political intelligence" devoted to digging up inside regulatory and congressional information so traders and companies can take advantage of it.
But by swinging and missing at Boehner and Pelosi, "60 Minutes" undermined its case.
Grim goes on to explain why in his view, Boehner and Pelosi did no wrong and shouldn't have been exposed by 60 Minutes.
However, as NewsBusters reported shortly after the program aired Sunday, Pelosi was one of five lawmakers exposed by 60 Minutes with the other four being Republicans. This occurred despite the book being cited by host Steve Kroft - Peter Schweizer's "Throw Them All Out" - naming numerous Congressional offenders with between 60 and 70 percent of them being Democrats.
As such, what is clearly a bipartisan problem on Capitol Hill was depicted Sunday evening as largely being a Republican scandal.
It seems the liberals at the Huffington Post were angered by any Democrats being exposed, and were willing to even come to a conservative's defense to give cover to the lone liberal named by 60 Minutes. Further evidence of this came towards the end of Grim's piece:
Operatives on both sides of the aisle, meanwhile, pointed out to The Huffington Post that Majority Leader Cantor (R-Va.) had dodged the "60 Minutes" bullet. The segment did not mention Cantor, who made several trades in 2005 that have come under scrutiny.
In March 2005, he bought stock in Merck and Encore Medical Corporation. In July, the GOP House passed medical liability reform, which Democrats at the time charged was a gift to Merck, which was under fire for its drug Vioxx, as well as other device makers.
CBS may have pulled its punch because producers worried about access: "60 Minutes" is working on a profile of the Virginia Republican and was with him over the past weekend, and Lesley Stahl will visit him Monday on the Hill, according to a source familiar with the arrangements.
Imagine for a moment allegations concerning Cantor had been substituted for those aimed at Pelosi thereby making this 60 Minutes segment exclusively about Republicans. Do you think Grim or anyone else at the Huffington Post would have complained?
Quite the contrary, this still would have made the Post's Monday front page headline, but in a fashion that enthusiastically congratulated CBS for its fine reporting while shouting from the rooftops about Republican corruption.
What a difference a "D" makes.
But there's a larger issue here. Schweizer's book makes a powerful case about bipartisan graft on Capitol Hill exploiting a little known loophole in the law that allows members of Congress to trade on information they obtain at hearings and meetings. This gives them investment opportunities strictly forbidden to the 300 million Americans they are supposed to represent.
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.
Don't you love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning?
