Head
Strong | Poor way to defend Fumo
February
18, 2007
By
Michael Smerconish
When Mayor Street's campaign blamed a Bush administration
political witch hunt for the bug found in City Hall, it guaranteed his
reelection in 2003. Now, State Sen. Vincent Fumo appears poised to take a page
out of that book in defending himself against federal indictment.
Fumo's legendary attorney, Dick Sprague, just held a news
conference and said the charges were part of an effort by the Bush
administration to drive Democrats from office.
"I suggest to you, and this doesn't just come from Dick
Sprague, that the Bush administration has politicized federal investigations
across the country," Sprague said. Then he offered the basis for that
statement.
"Let me read to you a study of reported federal
investigations of elected officials and candidates that shows that the Bush
administration Justice Department pursues Democrats far more than
Republicans."
Sprague then described a study that found that 79 percent of
elected officials and candidates investigated by the federal government between
2001 and 2006 were Democrats, and only 18 percent were Republicans. He said
Democrats made up only 50 percent of elected officeholders, and the chance of
such a heavy Democratic/Republican imbalance was 1 in 10,000.
"Does that suggest something to you? Something you
reporters really on the ball - instead of being spoon-fed by me or somebody
else - there's a story for you. Why not make an effort to investigate
that?"
Well, Mr. Sprague, I took your advice, and I am
underwhelmed. I think you might wish to look more deeply at the information you
have referenced, and I hope, for Fumo's sake, that you have more than this in
your trial bag. Especially if you hope to back up statements you made like
this:
"I suggest to you that it is the Bush Department of
Justice policy to try and destroy effective Democratic leaders. And State Sen.
Vince Fumo is one of those effective state Democratic leaders."
For starters, it was not easy to find the study Sprague
cited. It was not in any book. Or magazine. Or peer-reviewed journal. While it
was presented at something called the National Communication Association, it
hasn't been published at all. The only place it's even referenced is at http://www.tpmmuckraker.com, an offbeat
Web site associated with Talking Points Memo (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com).
And there, one finds only the same summary read by Sprague
at his news conference.
So I endeavored to track down one of the coauthors. I caught
up with Donald C. Shields, a professor emeritus in the department of
communication, University of Missouri-St. Louis. (His coauthor was John F.
Cragan, professor emeritus in the department of communication at Illinois State
University.) Shields told me that he had had no conversations with any of
Fumo's attorneys and that I was the first in the Philadelphia media to inquire
about his work. I asked him up front about his personal politics.
"I don't know what you mean by 'political bent,' "
he said. "I guess I kind of believe in the Amendments to the Constitution.
... I'm a lifelong Democrat."
That sounded fair. But any insinuation of impartiality was
belied by the very first line in the abstract of the study Shields soon
e-mailed to me:
"This paper examines John Ashcroft's blended religious
fundamentalist and neoconservative rhetorical vision and views its impact on
the political profiling of elected Democrats and moderate Republicans."
Ashcroft? Religious fundamentalism? Neoconservatives?
Profiling? Throw in Hoover and Nixon, and you have the successful Street
reelection platform.
I asked Shields about his methodology. How did he arrive at
the conclusion that the Bush administration targets Democrats?
It seems the research done by Shields, or Cragan, or both
consisted of simply hitting the Search button on Google.
Specifically, their work consisted of a tabulation of the
number of times the words or phrases federal grand jury or public corruption AND elected produced a result, along with
"a census search of extant press releases available at each U.S.
Attorney's Office official Web site." The names of Democrats come up far
more often than those of Republicans.
From that, he asks us to believe that Democrats are
investigated disproportionately and presumably unfairly.
I question the conclusion because of what is not addressed,
namely:
What about investigations that never get media coverage (and
thus don't get on Google)? Grand jury proceedings are by definition secret, so
we can never know the true extent of what's really going on.
What about the disparity of media coverage between large and
small towns? The Inquirer covers Philadelphia like a glove - but local outlets
may be less well-equipped to look into secret or putative investigations of
their local leaders. This is an important point because investigations often
are sparked off by media reports in the first place.
What about the disparity in Internet participation among
newspapers? Same here. Many good investigative stories in local papers don't
make it to the Web and therefore don't make it to Google.
Where is the confirmation of actual investigations? Shields
and Cragan got some of their data from U.S. Attorneys' office press releases,
but evidently never called those offices back to check their figures.
Why not address actual prosecutions, not just simplistic
media coverage of investigations? Granted, Sprague's claim, and the study it's
based on, concern investigations, but it's the cases that make it to the
prosecution stage where the rubber meets the road.
Most important, what about actual convictions? (See above.)
And - dare I say? - it is theoretically possible that
sometimes the conduct of members of one party may warrant more investigation
than that of another?
Instead, the two retired professors whose work Fumo's
attorney cited offer hyperbole such as "the political profiling of elected
democrats [sic] for federal investigation of possible corruption is more than
your typical Karl Rove-type, Republican campaign prank." And they claim
that "the current Bush Republican Administration appears to be the first
to have engaged in political profiling." (Appears to be ... hmm ... did they look at any
other administration? Er, no.)
That was their conclusion.
Here's mine: Garbage in, garbage out.
Michael Smerconish's column
appears on Thursdays in The Daily News and on Sundays in Currents. Michael can
be heard from 5:30 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM
(1210). Contact him via the Web at http://www.mastalk.com.