Very interesting comment in the Los Angeles Times this morning regarding Swift Boat Vet John O’Neill:

In a recent interview, O’Neill . . . said he had not voted for a Republican nominee for president since 1988. But campaign finance records show that between 1992 and 2004, he gave $10,250 to GOP congressional campaigns.

I think it’s poor journalism that the Times doesn’t specifically tell us whether O’Neill’s campaign finance records reveal contributions to Democrats.

The clear implication is that O’Neill has not donated any money to Democrats. After all, the use of the word “but” in that last sentence conveys clear skepticism regarding O’Neill’s claim that he is not a partisan Republican — and cites as allegedly contrary evidence O’Neill’s donations to GOP candidates. This doesn’t mean much if O’Neill has also made significant contributions to Democrats.

But the article says nothing directly speaking to the issue.

If the L.A. Times review of campaign finance records revealed no donations by O’Neill to Democrats, the paper should have said so directly, rather than simply implying it.

If, on the other hand, O’Neill has given money to Democrats — especially significant sums — then the L.A. Times has falsely implied that he has given money to Republicans only. At a minimum, the paper has left out an important part of the story. In that case, the Times owes O’Neill an apology.

I have written the authors of the article (with a copy to the Readers’ Representative) asking if they researched whether O’Neill gave money to Democrats. If he did, I have asked them to tell me how much he gave to Democrats, and over what period of time.

Again, as always, I’ll let you know what I hear.

P.S. It’s also interesting how the article words the statement that O’Neill “had not voted for a Republican nominee for president since 1988.” When you put it that way, the statement doesn’t necessarily seem that convincing. After all, maybe he just hasn’t voted in a presidential election since 1988.

Except that, in an interview I heard O’Neill give, he said that he voted for H. Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 — and Al Gore in 2000! That would be the same Al Gore who ran against George W. Bush. In other words, O’Neill is willing to vote for an opponent of George W. — just not John Kerry.

Including that level of detail — even just the fact that O’Neill voted for Gore — would have far been more persuasive than simply saying that O’Neill hadn’t voted for a Republican for President since 1988. I wonder why the Times reporters put it the way they did.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

(UPDATES to this post have been extensive. I am placing them in the extended entry.)

UPDATE: Commenters at Oh, That Liberal Media have answered the donations question for me, with evidence including this link. Apparently there have been no O’Neill donations to Democrats. I don’t understand why the Times didn’t just say that. It makes their point even stronger.

Of course, as Stefan Sharkansky notes in the comments at OTLM, the one-sided nature of the donations doesn’t mean O’Neill is not credible. But it does suggest some political partisanship on O’Neill’s part. That’s information readers should know — just like the information that O’Neill voted for Al Gore.

UPDATE x2: Not so fast! Commenters at Oh, That Liberal Media and here raise a number of interesting issues on the donations front that convince me that issue is more complicated than it seems — and that it was worth bringing up and hashing out.

One commenter at OTLM points me to this odd article in the London Telegraph. I don’t know what to make of it. The author appears to be biased against O’Neill, describing him as “trembling with rage as he talked of events that happened more than 30 years ago.” As commenter Julie points out, O’Neill sounds different in this interview than in virtually any other interview I have heard or seen with him. So I’m not sure I trust the article 100%. However, it does quote O’Neill as saying that he has recently given “$20,000 to Democrats running for the Houston City Council.”

I’m not yet absolutely convinced that these donations would have been found by the searches that have been reported to date. The Telegraph article mentions searches of local election data, but does not provide direct sourcing for the statement. The link I give above (which is a Media Matters link) appears to refer only to O’Neill’s contributions to “federal candidates or national political organizations.” That does not sound like it would cover the donations that O’Neill has claimed he made to Democrats.

Curiouser and curiouser. I had written the Times folks to tell them I thought I had found the answer, but I am now writing them back to say I am not so sure — and to add two questions to the list: 1) did their campaign finance records cover contributions to local candidates, and 2) would it have covered contributions made this year?

I’m also going to send an e-mail to the Swift Vets on the issue — though I am disappointed to report that they have not responded to my last e-mail. I bet they are overwhelmed with press inquiries. I’m not sure even they anticipated the amount of attention they would receive. (Sometimes this whole Republican attack machine proves to be less organized than alleged.)

I do think that these are questions worth asking, in light of both: 1) O’Neill’s apparent claim of large contributions to Democrats, and 2) his enemies’ use of his donations to Republicans to paint him as a partisan hack.

UPDATE x3: I am getting very enlightening information in the comments. One commenter points to a claim that O’Neill made on the Brit Hume show, that he has given three times as much money to Democrats as to Republicans. Another commenter notes that state and local contributions don’t show up on FEC reports. If FEC reports are all that the Times folks reviewed, they should say so. They should disclose the limitations of those reports, and should also note O’Neill’s claim that he has made even greater contributions to Democrats than Republicans.

And then they should find a way to check the veracity of his claims.

UPDATE x4: Another commenter notes that the left-wingers at Media Matters have managed to locate some of O’Neill’s contributions to Democrats. The revelation is buried deep in the post, which is one way you can tell that it hurts them to say it.

Why can’t the Times do this sort of checking??