Friday, July 24, 2009

A question of bias: Fox News finally sees problem

What took FReepers and bloggers only minutes to discover by simply using internet search engines has taken Fox News days to figure out:
"The independent investigator who has accused Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of violating state ethics laws is a major donor to the Democratic Party as well as a partner in a law firm that represented Barack Obama's presidential campaign."
Brilliant deduction, Holmes. Fox fails to mention, however, that Daniel is also a member of the ACLU,showing that the "independent" investigator is not only a Democrat, but one on the party's hard left wing.

John Coale, the Beltway lawyer who helped set up the legal fund, said even the appearance of bias by an investigator in such circumstances calls his finding into question:
Coale also accused the personnel board of being "either vicious or idiotic" to hire Daniel, whose law firm is closely tied to the Democratic Party.

Daniel has contributed $3,500 in recent years to Democratic causes, including $1,500 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 and $1,000 to Alaska Sen. Mark Begich's senatorial campaign last year.

The law firm where he is a partner, Perkins Coie, serves as counsel of record for the Democratic Party and its candidates, and attorneys there recently represented Obama's presidential campaign.

"Whatever happens, you know there's going to be a huge explosion at the end," Coale said.

[...]

Coale said it wouldn't have been difficult for the board to find a neutral investigator, and argued the personnel board shouldn't have pushed Daniel as "independent."

"I don't know if the guy is straight or not," Coale said. "They should have disclosed this before. It doesn't mean you can't be objective. But in this situation, you don't want the appearance of bias."
The personnel board, should it adopt Daniel's conclusions, will have much explaining to do as to why it hired him in the first place. And the argument that he is not biased because he reported in the governor's favor five times does not hold water. All of those ethics claims were so weak and obviously motivated by Politics, how could he have found otherwise? 

- JP

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