I have to admit, I’m a little surprised the Alishtari story isn’t a bigger deal. If the DCCC had accepted money from an accused terrorist financier, and kept the money, it seems safe to assume it’d get quite a bit of attention.
For those of you just joining us, here’s a quick review. Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari (aka Michael Mixon) is currently facing federal charges for allegedly providing material support to terrorists. Alishtari is also a generous Republican donor contributing more than $15,000 in the ’02 and ’04 cycles to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and having been named to the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s “Inner Circle Leadership Committee.” GOP officials acknowledged Tuesday that they took money from an accused terrorist financier, but decided that they won’t return the money.
The AP picked up on the story yesterday, which I thought might help propel the controversy to the front page. No such luck. Of the nation’s major daily newspapers, only the New York Daily News has written a stand-alone article on the controversy (a handful of others have mentioned it briefly, but didn’t publish articles). Literally, that gives us a grand total of two articles in the leading papers since Alishtari’s arrest, both from the same paper.
What about broadcast media? MSNBC mentioned this story just once (Olbermann devoted about a half-minute to the story on Monday) and CNN mentioned it just once on Tuesday (Jacki Schechner gave it about a minute on the Situation Room — because the blogs were talking about it). Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC haven’t mentioned it at all.
What’s up?
R.J. Eskow makes a compelling case that this would be huge if the shoe were on the other foot.
I’ve waited a couple of days for this story to move from the back pages to the headlines. Nothing. Apparently the story that a Republican Party fundraiser has now been accused of financing terrorism is no big deal. The media’s more interested in Obama’s smoking, the Clintons’ sex life, and the state of decay on the face of Anna Nicole’s corpse (which Larry King covered the other night, thanks to a talkative county coroner.)
In fairness to Larry, he’s not supposed to cover hard news. And to that joker who just said it’s a redundancy to say “Republican Party fundraiser accused of financing terrorism” – very funny, wise guy. Still, to read this story and realize that it’s been essentially overlooked is to experience the impending explosion of one’s own head.
Can you imagine how they’d cover it if a Democratic Party fundraiser had been accused of financing terror training camps, transferring funds to pay for “night vision goggles and other equipment” needed to train terrorists manque? It would be an even bigger story than the plane Nancy Pelosi (didn’t) request – by, oh, a factor of a million or so. Doncha think?
Oh, and the camp in question is in Afghanistan. You remember. The country that was connected to 9/11. The one that is part of the “war on terror.”
For what it’s worth, the DCCC still hopes to push the controversy, in part by focusing on those Republicans who received support from the NRCC.
22 Republican representatives have taken money from the NRCC since the accused terrorist began contributing to the Republicans
The question now is whether these Republicans will give back the tainted cash or use it to stuff their campaign coffers.
So far, NONE of the Republican Members have come out to condemn their party’s national campaign committee for raising money from contributors indicted for terrorism.
“Are these representatives going to keep NRCC money received from someone who may have supported terrorists?” asked Jennifer Crider, the DCCC’s Communications Director. “These representatives talk tough on terrorism so why aren’t they calling on Republican leadership and the NRCC to immediately return its contributions from an accused terrorist?”
Am I missing some obvious reason this isn’t gaining traction?