From the “Bias? What liberal bias?” files…

On Saturday, CNN.com had a piece [9/12 clarification carried by Reuters] titled “Firms with White House ties get Katrina contracts:”

Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration’s first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush’s former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

The Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, CNN tells us, is a major corporate client of Joe Allbaugh, President Bush’s former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Among its Katrina-related contracts are this one valued up to $100 million from FEMA; and this one also valued up to $100 million from the Army Corps of Engineers.

But in their zeal to embarrass the Bush administration, CNN overlooks one very fat and inconvenient fact–and embarrasses only itself.

The Shaw Group, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, is headed by Jim Bernhard, the current chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. Bernhard worked tirelessly for Democrat Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s runoff campaign and served as co-chair of her transition team. Another Shaw executive was Blanco’s campaign manager. Bernhard is back-scratching chums with Blanco, whom he has lent/offered the Shaw Group’s corporate jets to on numerous occasions.

So, why was none of this mentioned in CNN’s Bush-profiteers-are-evil narrative?
Send them a clue here.

Fortunately for CNN, they weren’t the only ones guilty of this glaring omission:

UPI failed to note that the CEO of the Shaw Group also happens to be the Louisiana Democratic Party chairman and beleaguered La. Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s most influential crony.

So did the London Observer.

And Reuters/MSNBC. And the CBC.

And the NYTimes (reprinted in the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, the Scotsman, and scores of media outlets around the world).

Like I said: Bias? What liberal bias?

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