Greg Gordon and two other McClatchy correspondents — people whose reporting used to flow directly into the Star Tribune, but with the sale to Avista Capital Partners now flows elsewhere — have an excellent story up today connecting dots in the US Attorneys firing scandal.
Titled, “New US Attorneys Seem to Have Partisan Records”, the McClatchy team makes a point of noting that presidential advisor Karl Rove, in a speech last April to the Republican National Lawyers Association, (there’s something redundant about that, but I can’t quite put my finger on it), specified Minnesota among 11 states pivotal to GOP election prospects in 2008. They then note that Rove/Gonzalez/Sampson et al have overseen the replacement of US Attorneys in nine of those states … including Minnesota, where Tom Heffelfinger had, to the surprise of many, stepped down a couple months earlier.
In his column last Sunday, Nick Coleman laid out connections that you’d think would tantalize any major daily newsroom. Like some of the rest of us, Coleman had waited weeks for the StarTribune to commence any kind of reporting on even the possibility of a connection between a major national story, the sudden departure of a Republican US Attorney at least as moderate as any of those later fired, and/or the processes and connections that brought Paulose to her present job. I mean folks, the 33 year-old woman arrives here direct from Gonzalez’ office in D.C., where she served as senior counsel to Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty, the guy now infamous for asserting that the eight fired US Attorneys were whacked for “performance-related issues”. That is … questionable.
This isn’t a presumed guilty until proven innocent question. It isa matter of basic professional skepticism. The fundamental question of the US Attorneys scandal is whether this was done to advance the political purposes of the Republican Party by politicizing a highly influential office of the judiciary. It seems fair to ASK if there is any possiblity that is what happened here in Minnesota. Local media is forever falling over themselves grasping for the vaguest, most remote “Minnesota connectrion” to any national story. (JFK Jr. dies in plane crash! Once ate Cheerios! Quotes from General Mills spokesman to follow!)
But in this case, nothing? What ever happened to basic journalistic due diligence? The new Star Tribune may be strapped for resources and staff, both here and in D.C., but certainly at this point, what with provocative work done by Minnesota Campaign Report, (which doth protest way too self-righteously about a minor mistake in a complicated story), a piece in the Salt Lake Tribune, (which ironically was sparked by a call from Coleman), and now this latest McClatchy report, the time is overripe for the Star Tribune to run … SOMETHING … on this.
All the tedious tut-tutting about journalistic ethics and appearances of conflict of interest — Sid Hartman does a TV commercial! — start sounding a little hollow if the paper can’t do the fundamental work of looking in to something this intriguing and close to home.
For the record, the Star Tribune isn’t alone in seriously avoiding this story. As best I can tell, of the local TV stations, only KMSP, ch. 9 has run a story on any kind of Heffelfinger connection. That is other than KSTP-TV’s Bob McNaney story on Paulose’s grandiose investiture early last month.
For his efforts McNaney, nobody’s idea of a flaming liberal, has been ripped by both Powerline and Star Trib gossip columnist, C.J. . (By certain standards I guess the CJ rip rates as “some kind of reference” to the broader story.)
Caught on the run the other night, McNaney was still steamed about the shots from those two. He smells a coordinated effort. “If the US Attorney’s office needs to use CJ to protect themselves from me they’re in even worse shape than I thought. And you can use that.”
McNaney said he had to be careful about saying much more right now because, “We aren’t done with this story.” But he was not impressed by Paulose.
“Watch the entire interview. All the raw tape. It’s up on our site. This is one of coolest, most buttoned-down, refined characters you’ll ever meet, until I start asking about the ceremony and the ‘problem journalist’ list. Watch her body language. The only time she squirms is when I ask about that stuff.”
What you don’t want to think in this situation is that the Star Tribune and the rest of the Twin Cities newsrooms are hanging back on asking impertinent questions about Heffelfinger’s departure and Paulose’s arrival … because she is a minority female. Modern newsrooms are hyper-sensitive to such issues, usually for good reason. But by definition anyone in a US Attorney’s job is a big girl playing in the big leagues with large, bonafide public responsibilities.
If you’re in the news business it is your job to ask such people, or people who know such people, tough questions.
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