Should readers pardon McClatchy’s N&O’s Obama bias?

The liberal/leftist McClatchy Company’s liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer’s working hard to elect Sen. Barack Obama our next President.

Today on its front page, above the fold the N&O headlines:

Politics tainted hiring in Justice
Department's watchdog says applicants with liberal leanings were overwhelmingly rejected -- in violation of the law

The story, with an AP byline, begins:

Ivy Leaguers and other top law students were rejected for nonpolitical Justice Department jobs because of their liberal leanings or objections to Bush administration politics, the department's internal watchdog concluded Tuesday.

The rest of the story’s here.

Now compare the N&O’s treatment of today’s story with how it treated the news three weeks ago when Obama picked his friend and former Clinton administration deputy attorney general Eric Holder to serve on a three-person vice-presidential nominee vetting committee.

Holder, according to a 2002 congressional report on the Clinton pardon scandals, was a ''willing participant in the plan to keep the Justice Department from knowing about and opposing'' a pardon for Marc Rich, a fugitive who fled America in 1983 on the eve of his trial on charges of tax evasion, racketeering and trading with the enemy.

On Mar. 13, 2002 the NY Times reported ( "Panel Says Top Justice Dept. Aide Held Information on Rich's Pardon" ):

Mr. Holder, the report says, played a major role [in helping the fugitive Rich obtain the pardon], steering Mr. Rich's lawyers toward Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel. Mr. Rich hired Mr. Quinn, whose Washington contacts and ability to lobby the president made the difference, according to the report.

It says that Mr. Holder's support for the pardon and his failure to alert prosecutors of a pending pardon were just as crucial. …

The panel criticized Mr. Holder's conduct as unconscionable and cited several problems. It cited his admission last year that he had hoped Mr. Quinn would support his becoming attorney general in a Gore administration.

You can read more about Holder’s role in helping secure the Rich pardon and find links in this JinC post.

So how did the Anything for Obama N&O handle the Holder and pardon scandal story?

It did what it often does with news it doesn’t want its readers to have. It simply didn’t report the story.

You can confirm that for yourselves by going to the N&O’s archives and searching.

I just did that. Using the entry words “Eric Holder” and the dates May 1, 2008 to June 25, 2008, the entry “Eric Holder” returned only one hit.

It's a brief item in the June 23 “B” section noting “Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said that members of Obama's [vice-presidential ]vetting team, Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, indicated [former Sens. John Edwards and Sam Nunn] were on the list, The Associated Press reports.”

For those of you who may be new to the N&O, its editors insist it adheres to “the McClatchy Company’s standards of fairness and accuracy.”

N&O executive editor for news John Drescher and its public editor Ted Vaden tell readers the N&O’s news columns are devoted to straight news reporting.

Those McClatchy N&O editors are misleading us and I don't think they should be paronded for it.

What do you think?