Inside Politics

NEWS BLACKOUT

“Writing in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal and National Review Online, Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Stanley Kurtz traced Barack Obama’s partnership with former domestic terrorist William Ayers, when the two collaborated at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity established to help Chicago’s public schools that was commandeered by Ayers to promote his radical agenda,” the Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes writes at newsbusters.org.

“The association between Obama and Ayers has received virtually no attention from the three broadcast networks, with the conspicuous exception of a primary-season debate sponsored by ABC when George Stephanopoulos asked Obama about his relationship with Ayers. Out of 1,365 broadcast evening news stories about Obama prior to the end of the primaries, only two mentioned Ayers - one a brief mention of the debate question on the April 17 ‘Nightly News,’ and the other an April 20 ‘World News Sunday’ story about [John] McCain raising the Ayers issue on ‘This Week.’

“With just 42 days left until Election Day, the broadcast networks have not presented a single in-depth report on Obama’s relationship with Ayers. But Kurtz’s review of the documents at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) showed the two ‘worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda,’ which ‘flowed from Mr. Ayers’ educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism.’”

PAY EQUITY

“Two weeks ago, I explored the gap between Barack Obama’s rhetoric on pay equity and the reality of how he pays women in his Senate office. While Obama preaches equal pay for equal work, he does not practice it on Capitol Hill,” Deroy Murdock writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).

“Well, it turns out that his running mate, Joe Biden, is even worse,” Mr. Murdock said.

“Based on calculations using Senate pay records posted by LegiStorm.com, a political-transparency organization, between Oct. 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, Obama’s 28 male staffers divided among themselves total payroll expenditures of $1,523,120. Obama’s average male employee earned $54,397 on an annualized basis.

“Obama’s 30 female employees split $1,354,580 among themselves, or $45,152, on average.

“Among Obama’s top five highest-paid - and likely most senior - employees, one was female. Among his top 20, seven were women.

“All told, for every dollar that Obama paid his average male staffer, his female counterpart made just 83 cents.

“As for Biden, his 14 male staffers split a total payroll outlay of $1,077,128.40. So, Biden’s average male employee earned $76,937.74 per annum.

“Biden’s 27 female employees divided $1,517,874.47, or $56,217.57, on average.

“Among Biden’s top five highest-paid aides, one was a woman. Among the top 20, 11 were women.

“All told, for every dollar that Biden paid his average male staffer, his female equivalent made only 73 cents.”

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