New York Times Editor Compares Adelson, Koch Brothers to Watergate Era

At a meeting of the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference last Saturday in Boston, New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson said that she is proud of the newspaper’s coverage of super PAC donations, and compared the donations of Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers to what happened during the Watergate era:

On these shores, I’m tremendously proud of all the enterprise stories we’ve done on the super PACs and the billionaires behind them. Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers may be the most important behind-the-scenes players in this election. Especially considering Watergate history, an environment where there are giant, secret campaign contributions is ripe for even more investigations.

While singling out Adelson and the Koch brothers, Abramson conveniently left out any mention of liberals like George Soros who are also donating to super PAC’s, in their case to help Obama and the Democrats in November.

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By tying Adelson and the Koch brothers to Watergate, she implied that their donations may be criminal in some fashion, which they are clearly not. On the other hand, as CBS News reported earlier this year, it is the liberal super PAC’s that are exploiting a loophole on donor disclosure, which allows them to avoid listing the names of individual donors, many of whom had ties to organized labor. And why no mention of George Soros? Now that sounds like a story more worthy of a Watergate comparison than Abramson’s feeble attempt to discredit contributions to super PAC’s by conservatives. But then again we are talking about The New York Times. The full video of Abramson’s remarks can be seen via IRE.