It's Jack Kelly Sunday!

Jack Kelly's column this week is going to be a tough nut to crack - including, as it does, at least one completely unsupported assertion.

But let's get started anyway.

J-Kel begins by whining that the media reports more about the scandals that involve Republicans than it does the scandals that involve Democrats. It's underlying assumption is that the level of scandal is equal in both parties. Since the coverage of the scandals are out of balance, the coverage must be biased. But that's only if the level of corruption of both parties is the same - and it just isn't. More on that later.

But back to Jack.

He begins his "argument" by pointing out two other scandals (each involving Democrats) that the media hasn't told you about. Would it surprise you to learn that Kelly's leaving out some important info? No it wouldn't.

But The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that a lower-middle-class family in suburban San Francisco has contributed $45,000 to Hillary Clinton and $200,000 total to Democratic candidates since 2005, contributions they almost certainly couldn't afford on the $49,000 annual salary chief breadwinner William Paw earned as a postal worker.

Here's the WSJ article. But before you head over there, think about your first impression of this family. How much money do they make? Kelly says the the chief breadwinner makes only $49,000 a year - so we can assume that the rest of the family has no income, right? Here's what the WSJ wrote about them:

Records show they own a gift shop and live in a 1,280-square-foot house that they recently refinanced for $270,000. William Paw, the 64-year-old head of the household, is a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service who earns about $49,000 a year, according to a union representative. Alice Paw, also 64, is a homemaker. The couple's grown children have jobs ranging from account manager at a software company to "attendance liaison" at a local public high school. One is listed on campaign records as an executive at a mutual fund. [emphasis added]

Wait, wait, wait. The father makes $49K and they own a gift shop and the children are grown and one's an account manager at a software company and another as an executive at a mutual fund?

Jack must've known this - it's in the WSJ article he references. Yet he's trying to get us to believe that the income for the entire family is only $49,000.

That's a lie of ommission.

As Mediamatters.org points out, half of that $200,000 came from one of those grown children, Winkle Paw. He's actually quoted in the article:

I have been fortunate in my investments and all of my contributions have been my money.

The next paragraph from Jack:

Contributions from the Paw family often were made on the same day as contributions from Norman Hsu, a New York businessman who has been one of Ms. Clinton's top fundraisers, the Journal said. Mr. Hsu once listed the Daly City bungalow where the Paw family lives as his residence.

Mr. Hsu is a fugitive, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. He pleaded no contest to a charge of grand theft in 1991, but left California surreptitiously before he was to begin serving a three-year prison sentence.

Mr. Hsu has donated nearly half a million dollars to Ms. Clinton and other Democrats since 2004, including Gov. Ed Rendell, and bundled donations for half a million more from other donors, many of them, like the Paws, with no history of donating to political candidates.

The point Jack's trying to make, without actually coming out and saying it, is that Hsu funnelled the money to the "poor" Paw family - and that's a scandal. It's a scandal that the mainstream media won't talk about. Except that (and this is from the WSJ):

There is no public record or indication Mr. Hsu reimbursed the Paw family for their political contributions.

Let's move on to Hsu. According to the initial reporting in the LA Times:

Beginning in 1989, court records show, he began raising what added up to more than $1 million from investors, purportedly to buy latex gloves; investors were told Hsu had a contract to resell the gloves to a major American business.

In 1991, Hsu was charged with grand theft. Prosecutors said there were no latex gloves and no contract to sell them.

Hsu pleaded no contest to one grand theft charge and agreed to accept up to three years in prison. He disappeared, Smetana said, after failing to show up for a sentencing hearing. Bench warrants were issued for his arrest but he was never found, Smetana said.

He's since turned himself in. Did you know that the Clinton campaign is giving to charity the $23,000 it received from Hsu? Something else Jack didn't tell you.

Also note that Jack didn't tell you whether the Clinton campaign had any idea what Hsu was doing. They probably should have, but there's no indication it did. Something else Jack's hoping you'd just assume along the way.

Let's keep going. This is fun, ain't it?

Jack mentions another donor:

Abdul Rahman Jinnah, a Pakistani immigrant, surrendered to the FBI. He is accused of illegally funneling tens of thousands of dollars to Ms. Clinton and to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Any idea when he surrendered to the FBI? Since the story is about recent news, we should be assuming it's recently, right? Nope. It was last May:

A Pakistani businessman accused of illegally funnelling tens of thousands of dollars to the political campaigns of US senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer surrendered to the FBI on a year-old indictment on Tuesday, then collapsed in Los Angeles federal court, Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday.

Turns out, however, that:

The drama unfolded shortly after Jinnah, who has a history of heart problems and diabetes, flew back to the US from Pakistan to answer charges by a grand jury that he engineered illicit donations to Ms Clinton’s political action committee and Ms Boxer’s 2004 re-election campaign. Officials from both campaigns have said they were unaware of the alleged wrongdoing and returned the contributions.

This, also, was last May. Last March, the NYPost reported that the Clinton Campaign denied it had any knowledge of the contributions and donated the funds to charity. Last March.

You wouldn't have known that from Jack Kelly's column either.

Let's get to the meat of the column and Jack's blatantly unsupported (indeed unsopportable) assertion:

When a scandal involves a Republican, his or her party affiliation is mentioned in the lead. When it involves a Democrat, party affiliation typically is mentioned deep in the story, if at all.

He offers no evidence to support this. Anyway, how can you check?

There is, of course, evidence of the media misrepresenting tainted Republicans as Democrats. Mark Foley (Republican from Florida), for instance.

Jack then goes completely nuts:

But media bias is not the main reason why Republicans suffer more from scandals. Democratic voters expect Democrats to steal on their behalf. Lawmakers are judged on the basis of how many goodies from the federal treasury they can shower on their constituents. The typical Democratic voter doesn't mind terribly if their senator or congressman takes something for himself along the way. (Time Magazine's story on Rep. Mollohan's re-election was headlined, "Pork Trumps Scandal.")

The typical Republican voter wants his senator or congressman to keep his taxes low, his government honest. He is furious when GOP lawmakers stick their fingers in the cookie jar, or give lip service to values they do not practice.

Republicans must be squeaky clean to win elections because their voters will crucify them for behavior Democratic voters wink at so long as the pork keeps flowing. This is why his GOP colleagues already have stripped Sen. Craig of his committee assignments, and many have called for his resignation, while Democratic senators are comfortable having among them a man who left to drown in his automobile a young woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair. [emphasis added]

He chides the Democrats for what's known as pork. And as distasteful as congressional pork may be, it's legal. For instance Republican Senator Ted Stevens has been delivering pork to Alaska for decades. His was that huge bridge project in Alaska that Stevens supported instead of funding for post-Katrina New Orleans.

On whether the Republicans or the Democrats are more corrupt right now, Check out Rachel Maddow:

and Josh Marshall:

But when you're losing an argument about Republican scandals, just mention Chappaquidick.

UPDATE: While I was reading Jack Kelly's drivel about how scandals involving Republicans get all the media's attention and scandals involving Democrats don't, I missed this from mediamatters.org.

Turns out that while television and cable news were all focussing on Norman Hsu (remember Kelly said they weren't), they missed the story of Mitt Romney's former national finance committee chairman, Alan Fabian. While dutifully pointing out how Norman Hsu is a fugitive from justice who donated thousands of dollars to democrats, they failed to point out how Fabian was charged with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice.

But we should probably give him a pass on those last two. Dubya had already commuted the Scooter's sentence on perjury and obstruction of justice, so those crimes obviously aren't a big deal to the GOP.

The Romney campaign has since turned Fabian loose (a donut to anyone who gets the pun), but according to mediamatters, while the Romney campaign said it would return Fabian's contribution, it would not return the contributions from anyone with ties to him.

As an inadvertant bonus to us, Mediamatters lists all the TV and cable news programs that covered the Hsu story (remember, Kelly said they hadn't). Here's the list:

• CNN Newsroom, August 31
• CNN's American Morning, August 31
• CNN's The Situation Room, August 30
• NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, August 30
• CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, August 30
• Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, August 30
• NBC's Today, August 30
• American Morning, August 30
• Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, August 29
• Special Report, August 29
• Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson, August 29
• The Situation Room, August 29

I'll say it again. Jack Kelly needs a better fact-checker. Or better yet a fact-checker.