I canÂ’t help but notice a certain omission from this article about an FBI investigation into political corruption in West Virginia.

The three men were sitting in a car outside a rural elementary school in West Virginia when the candidate handed over $2,000 in cash and said, "Buy all the votes you can."

In the hamlets and hollows of Logan County, where political shenanigans are legendary and it's said that a vote can be bought for a pint of whiskey or a $10 bill, some say there was nothing extraordinary about the transaction.

Here's what made it unusual: Although Thomas E. Esposito was on the ballot as a candidate for the state House of Delegates, he wasn't really running for office.
The small-town lawyer and former mayor was just bait. And when the FBI lowered him into the murky waters of southern West Virginia politics last year, it dangled him like a shiny lure.

The whole affair landed yesterday in a Charleston courtroom, where a defense attorney cried foul, accusing the government of "outrageous" conduct and of violating the sanctity of the election process. He said the charade robbed 2,175 citizens who voted for Esposito -- unaware he wasn't for real -- of a constitutional right.

But a federal judge sided with the government, ruling after a 30-minute hearing that corruption in Logan County had been endemic "for longer than living memory" and that the bogus election campaign might have been the only way to root it out.

Which is not to say that there was never a mention of which political party is rancid with corruption. The article finally got around to providing that detail about 1/3 of the way through the second page. That should be a big clue right there as to why the party is obscured in the article.

Yeah, you got it – the criminals corrupting the system are Democrats.

Now we can argue about whether or not the FBI tactic here was appropriate -- but we can't argue that the party affiliation was pretty throughly hidden.

Posted by: Greg at 01:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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