Journalists and "watchdog groups" must help each other in the cause of reform by staking out a position safely outside the theatre of political combat.  They are observers, critics, outsiders, sufficiently untouched by political passion or self-interest that they can bid for the trust of the wider public looking for safe passage through the Great Political Bazaar.  Like the unnamed pickpocket in Casablanca (not, as originally stated here, Mr. Ugarte), their message is:  "This place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere!"  They can sense the approach of vultures because they do not fly among them.  They are a different and rarer breed of bird:  nonpartisan, nonpolitical, keenly tuned to the most public of interests.

     Grant that their work has value, but it is still true that they escape politics only by giving it opportunistic definition.  "Watchdog groups"—those marvels of nonpartisanship, nonpolitical missionary work—demand accountability through disclosure up to the point where the disclosure would be their own.  Yesterday, according to a report in The Hill, watchdogs barked furiously about a proposed disclosure requirement for filing a complaint with an independent ethics panel now under consideration.  A complainant would have to file a report of donors, the sources of financial report that, in reform critiques, help voters sort out motive and interest. 

     This was too much for the reform community, for, as one of their spokesman stated:

"The notion that the government would make private organizations have to disclose their donors is highly problematic," he said. "I would have a very difficult time supporting that proposal, and there would be significant opposition from across the political spectrum."

     Now here is a bit of press work that would have benefited from reconsideration prior to release.  The "notion" being complained of—disclosure of finances as indicators of interest—is a notion peddled without pause by the same organizations now registering this complaint.  They would remain private, of course:  private but required, as a condition of participation in the political sphere, to disclosure. 

      And our good spokesman then predicts that opposition to the proposal would come "from across the political spectrum."  Well, if this is a political question, then the distinction he hopes to draw between the private and the political spheres is quick to collapse.  Reform work is political work, which is not to deny that it might be good work, and political work requires, by the standards on which reform groups insist, disclosure of finances that would reveal interest or motivation.

     The press, editorial boards included, will be rough with their criticism of this disclosure requirement and other alleged failings of the proposed new independent ethics enforcement panel.  To them, their colleagues in the reform community are not "political," any more than news organizations and their personnel believe themselves to be.  For to be "political" would entail a serious sacrifice of the disinterested stance established for the editorial, reporting and advocacy purposes. 

     On the same day, as it happened, MSNBC published a detailed report on the numbers of journalists and other staff of news organizations who contribute to political candidates, committees and parties.  Some organizations prohibit this activity; others do not, believing it to be private, not inconsistent with a professional and unbiased treatment of political topics presented to viewers and readers. 

      And the New York Times contributed to this story another feat of self-justification as remarkable as that produced by our reform community spokesman.   The policy against political donations, adopted in 2003, is explained this way:

Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributors, any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides.

     There you have it:  it was the advent of the Internet, increasing the odds of detection, that had the Times banning political donations previously allowed, on the sly.

"This place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere!"

Bob Bauer