Ignoring the who behind CREW

In his October 19 article about Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics' (CREW) call for an IRS investigation of Attorney General Phill Kline’s campaign, Topeka Capital-Journal reporter Tim Carpenter failed to tell readers who is behind CREW.

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, used to work for Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who hopes to impeach President Bush. She has also worked for liberal Democrat Sens. Schumer and Joe Biden.

CREW’s deputy director and communications director, Naomi Seligman Steiner, formerly served as communications director for Media Matters for America, a left-wing media “watchdog.” Media Matters was formed with help from the Center for American Progress (CAP), whose president is John Podesta, Bill Clinton's former chief of staff. CAP was started with seed money from George Soros, the billionaire financier. Reportedly, Soros contributed $23,450,000 to America Coming Together, MoveOn.org, and several other anti-Bush 527 committees during the 2004 election cycle.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, CREW itself receives funding from The Open Society Institute (OSI), the grantmaking foundation run by Soros.

Paul Morrison, Kline’s Democratic opponent, is an associate member of the Vera Institute for Justice, which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from OSI during the past few years through its Gideon Project. According to OSI, one of the goals of the Gideon Project is the abolition of the death penalty.

In September 2006, CREW released a report titled "Beyond Delay: The 20 most corrupt members of Congress (and five to watch)." Of the 25 members of Congress listed, just four are Democrats.

CREW is obviously closely aligned with the Democrat Party, yet Carpenter's article makes is seem as if the group is a non-partisan watchdog organization that is sincerely concerned about ethics. If this group were really concerned about ethics, would it have taken money from George Soros? After all, a French court in 2002 convicted Soros of insider trading and fined him $2.2 million. An appeals court upheld the conviction in 2005.