WaPo Gave Bush's 1976 DUI Front Page! But Fast and Furious Isn't a Scandal

I need to thank my friend Sean Arther for bringing this to my attention on Twitter. (Thank you!) He read my article on Dana Milbank, an op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, who claims Operation Fast and Furious is not a scandal. He remembered the intense media coverage in November 2000 when someone leaked George Bush’s 1976 DUI arrest. The media coverage was so intense that the LA Times ran an article about the coverage. One part caught my eye. [bold my emphasis]

Only a few major dailies–among them the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun and the Dallas Morning News–considered it front-page news. Others, such as the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, mentioned the arrest on Page One but ran a full story inside.

Editors at the Washington Post initially decided to keep the story inside. But they changed course as the story gathered steam during the night on the news wires.

“In the end, after a lot of discussion back and forth, . . . I decided that this was front-page news pure and simple,” said Executive Editor Leonard Downie. Bush’s acknowledgment that he had withheld the information, Downie said, “struck me as a newsworthy decision, to not disclose this when there was a long-standing issue about his personal conduct in the past.“

Interesting! Let me see if I have this right. A DUI arrest from 1976 deserves the front page. A federal funded operation that has resulted in the death of hundreds, including federal agents, does not deserve the front page.

Wait, what? I don’t see the logic.

This is beyond ridiculous. I found 5 articles on this story and 3 of them were published on the front page. WaPo published 2 articles and 1 editorial on November 4. WaPo used multiple writers for these stories, yet when it comes to Fast & Furious they will use one person or just publish the AP article. Doesn’t this sound familiar? Why, yes it does! The Washington Post put this much effort into that stupid rock at Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s vacation home. And just like those articles about Governor Perry’s vacation home, these articles about President Bush say the same thing over and over.

I think they overdid it, but I also think they were right to report on it. But if they want to be taken seriously and if they want us to stop accusing them of having liberal bias they must start treating ALL politicians and administrations the same. Yet this is how they view the Democrats:

A Democrat can never be in the wrong! WaPo gives President Bush an incredibly hard time for not telling us about his DUI arrest, but they give Mr. Holder and many others in this administration a pass on their obvious lies and misjudgements. I don’t know about you, but the more proof I find of their liberal bias the more I want to call them out. I can’t wait for the day when Mr. Holder acknowledges he withheld information on Operation Fast & Furious. Will The Washington Post be there to pick up the story? Will WaPo’s executive editor (Mr. Downie isn’t there anymore) put it on the front page?