While it is true that nobody is perfect, there is a line which is eventually crossed from being merely imperfect, to being grossly incompetent. The Washington Post has pole vaulted over that line with their recent story of “unlikely donors” to McCain’s campaign, insinuating some form of fraud may be in play. WaPo made the decision to plaster this story on their front page and it was quickly picked up by the liberal blogsphere. There’s only one problem, 75% of the “unlikely donors” listed, never donated to the McCain campaign.

Correction to This Article
The first name of McCain donor Faisal Abdullah was misspelled in some versions of this story, including in the print edition of The Washington Post. Also, the article incorrectly identified a Rite Aide manager and two Twilight Hookah Lounge owners as being among the donors Sargeant solicited on behalf of McCain. Those donors – Rite Aid manager Ibrahim Marabeh, and the lounge owners, Nadia and Shawn Abdalla – wrote checks to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain.

The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727, the 30-something owners of the Twilight Hookah Lounge in Fullerton. (strike throughs mine)

The editors at the Washington Post should be hanging their head in shame after having to make such easily verifiable correction. Amanda Carpenter spent probably about 5 minutes on OpenSecrets.org before coming to the conclusion the WaPo article was a complete fallacy.

Here’s the rub. I can’t find three out of these four donors on opensecrets.com, the online clearinghouse for donor information.

Here is what I can find:

-The donation record for Rite Aid General Manager Ibrahim Marabeh, who gave to Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani in 2007 and,

-The donation record for a man and a woman with the last name Abdalla who both manage a Twilight Lounge. But Twilight Lounge managers Nadia Abdalla and Hisham Abdalla gave money to Clinton and Giuliani, too. Not McCain. And WaPo reporter Matthew Mosk cites a “Shawn Abdalla” in his piece, but I only see Hisham, not Shawn.

As Ed Morrissey notes, the entire premise for this article is now non-existent, as there is no longer a pattern of “odd” contributions, only the one from the auto mechanic. Rather than posting a correction, the Washington Post should have the decency to run another front page story apologizing for their carelessness.

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Election 2008, Features, John McCain, Media, Politics