Another conflict of interest issue with a CNN political analyst?
First James Carville and Paul Begala were sidelined from the analyst ranks by CNN because of concerns by the Obama campaign about the pairs ties to the Clintons. Now questions are being raised about another CNN analyst; Bill Bennett. The Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney writes about the story…
Following Wednesday’s GOP debate in Los Angeles, Bennett exclaimed on CNN that he “had three hours of calls this morning of people angry at me because I was defending John McCain.”
“I don’t have a candidate,” he protested. “I haven’t endorsed anybody.”
In fact, on December 31, 2007, Bennett contributed the maximum amount, $4600, to McCain’s campaign. [See Bennett’s fundraising details on Huffington Post’s FundRace.]
Informed of the donations, a CNN official said that Bennett also gave an unspecified amount to Mitt Romney’s campaign in January 2008, which would not show up on the latest campaign filings.
Last month, Talking Points Memo reported that James Carville and Paul Begala had been suspended from CNN until after the Democratic primary because of their support for Sen. Hillary Clinton. The CNN official said Bennett’s situation was different since he had given to more than one candidate.
Like I said in another post if the Clinton News Network pulled everyone that had a conflict of interest..they would have to shut down the whole network.
Comment by mlong — February 2, 2008 @ 9:14 pm
What about MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan, who’s bound to be a Mitt supporter because his wife is managing the campaign? Whenever he’s part of the discussion for democrats, he really tries to subtly undermine Obama. He tried to claim Obama couldn’t get white votes any more and used Florida’s fake dem primary as his reasoning. What hogwash!
Comment by Jeri — February 2, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
I believe Bay Buchanan is Pat’s sister. His wife is Shelly, and at least used to be a blonde.
Comment by laural — February 2, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
The CNN official said Bennett’s situation was different since he had given to more than one candidate.
Does this mean Bennett won’t be suspended like Carville and Begala? Damn. Too bad.
Comment by Marty — February 3, 2008 @ 3:56 am