Not seen in the Chronicle...
...but I'll keep checking. Chris Elam points out that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has an ethics problem hanging over her head, but our "professional" journalist friends haven't shared the story with us:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi helped secure $3 million last year for a nonprofit transportation-research organization whose president gave money to her political action committee as the group was paying for a European trip for one of her policy advisers.
Transportation adviser Lara Levison's nine-day, $4,475 trip to Spain and Germany last April to learn about hydrogen-fuel cells for buses was primarily paid for by WestStart-CALSTART.
But just days before the trip, WestStart-CALSTART announced that Mrs. Pelosi had helped the nonprofit group secure $1 million from the Federal Transit Administration for a bus rapid-transit program. A month after the Levison trip, the group sent out a press release thanking her for a $2 million grant for a fuel-cell program.
Heavens to Betsy! Or Nancy, as it were.
According to campaign records, WestStart-CALSTART Chief Executive Officer John R. Boesel also gave $1,000 to one of Mrs. Pelosi's political action committees in 2003 and $1,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Both Mr. Boesel and Mrs. Pelosi's spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said there is no link between the staffer's trip and the grants.
Well, that denial of impropriety would NEVER have passed muster with the Chronicle, if House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was involved.
As Chris points out:
Why isn't this story being splashed across every liberal newspaper in the country? When Tom DeLay's name appears on the letterhead of a group, that gave money to a group, that gave money to a group... the Democrats / MSM are chomping at the bit to try and tenuously link DeLay to any wrongdoing. They leave no stone unturned to discover if DeLay took a piece of salt-water taffy out of a jar in some donor to a donor's office. THEN, when nothing can be dug up, the 'journalists' call up a few anonymous aides, and trumpet DeLay's rising unpopularity within the GOP leadership!
However, when Nancy Pelosi is personally overseeing the grant of THREE MILLION DOLLARS to a political donor, and accepting European trips for policy advisors from said group... what do we hear from our always-so-ethically-concerned-about-keeping-up-appearances friends?
*crickets*
Business as usual.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/05/05 03:14 PM | Houston Chronicle | Print | Comments (0)
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