Business Week Publishes Democratic Party Hit-Piece As News, Forgets to Warn Readers

Today’s example of MSM bias: this Business Week article by Leo Hindery, Jr., titled “Tragedy and Telecom.” The article is subtitled, “How the Bush Administration’s antiregulation stance contributed to the post-Katrina communications collapse — and what should be done now.” Mr. Hindery’s indictment of the Bush administration is the latest effort to blame the President for just about everything associated with Hurricane Katrina. Its reasoning is so fragmentary, however, that Hindery never does explain why “the Bush administration’s antiregulation stance” had anything to do with the hurricane or its aftermath. That doesn’t stop Hindery from dropping the usual snide comments. Here is his conclusion:

Should the Bush Administration adopt for telecom a regulatory posture that better takes into account the common good and welfare instead of its current “no regulation unless we really have to” stance? It must — around such matters as quality standards, universal service and emergency preparedness — if it is ever to be an Administration “of all the people” (and not of just the K Street lobbyists), and if it really does want those 911 calls answered.
And after the tragic battle for New Orleans, should the Bush Administration, in the realms of telecom reform and infrastructure development, abandon the mantra it borrowed from Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform: “I don’t want to abolish government — I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drown it in the bathtub”?
As to this last question, knowing what you now know, what do you think?

That’s quite an indictment. But whom does it come from? Business Week describes Leo Hindery, Jr. this way:

Leo Hindery Jr. is managing partner of InterMedia Partners, a private investment firm. He is former CEO of the YES Network and CEO of TCI and its successor, AT&T Broadband.

Oddly, Business Week omits Hindery’s most notable experience in the telecom world: as CEO of Global Crossing. Yes, that Global Crossing–the company that made a number of investors rich, including former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, but turned out to be riddled with fraud, and collapsed into one of the biggest bankruptcies ever.
Is Hindery’s involvement in Global Crossing the only connection between him and McAuliffe? Well, no. In fact, Hindery was a contender to succeed McAuliffe as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee:

The person Mr. Daschle has been touting as the other chairman is a Manhattan financier and cable-television executive, Leo Hindery Jr. A major Democratic fund-raiser, Mr. Hindery has met with Democratic lawmakers to discuss the option.

Hindery is a major Democratic contributor as well as fundraiser; so far he’s donated over $60,000 to the Democrats for the 2006 election cycle, and he contributed over $160,000 to the Democrats in 2004.
Hindery is an activist as well as a money-man; he serves on the Board of Advisors of left-wing Democracy Radio, and was awarded the “Oates-Shrum Leadership Award of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.”
So there you have it: Business Week published a vicious attack on President Bush by a man whom the magazine blandly represented as a telecom executive, writing in his field of expertise. But the magazine not only forgot to mention that Hindery was the CEO of Global Crossing; it also omitted the highly-relevant facts that Hindery is a Democratic Party activist and fundraiser, and was, fact, a contender for the Chairmanship of the Democratic Party.
But–you may protest–magazines sometimes get fooled. Maybe Business Week got a submission from Leo Hindery and printed it without realizing that it was nothing but a Democratic Party hit-job. Um, no. In fact, Business Week reported on Mr. Hindery just last December: “The Democrats Go Scouting For A Savior”:

For Democrats who long to see the DNC run more like a business, there’s Hindery, an ex-Tele-Communications Inc. president and AT&T Broadband & Internet Services (T ) CEO. But some worry about Hindery’s later tenure at scandal-plagued Global Crossing Ltd. (GLBC ), a company to which McAuliffe also had connections.

Funny how much Business Week could forget in such a short time.

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