Bill Bennett has a disclosure problem (again)

American journalists are citizens, too, and if they want to contribute financially to political campaigns, there’s nothing especially wrong with that. But in most cases, a little disclosure would go a long way.

Last December, conservative author and CNN election analyst William J. Bennett gave several thousand dollars to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, a fact that Bennett has not mentioned during any of his appearances on the network, according to a review of transcripts by the Huffington Post.

Moreover, after giving the donation, Bennett claimed on-air that he was neutral in the GOP race, even as he repeatedly dispensed advice to McCain on how he could win over doubtful conservatives.

Following Wednesday’s GOP debate in Los Angeles, Bennett exclaimed on CNN that he “had three hours of calls this morning of people angry at me because I was defending John McCain.”

“I don’t have a candidate,” he protested. “I haven’t endorsed anybody.”

In fact, on December 31, 2007, Bennett contributed the maximum amount, $4600, to McCain’s campaign.

I think Atrios’ reaction was spot-on: “Personally I’ve never really understood why ‘donating to candidates’ was a high sin for mainstream media personalities, but certainly Bennett should’ve disclosed his support for McCain given the typical rules of their breed.”

This is especially significant with CNN, given that the network announced that Clinton backers James Carville and Paul Begala “would no longer be appearing on CNN unless they were paired with a supporter of Barack Obama.” The thinking, of course, is that neither Carville nor Begala can offer neutral analysis at one moment, while backing one of the candidates they’re analyzing the next.

Worse, I’d just add that Bennett has had disclosure problems before.

Long time readers may recall that Bennett, while under contract with Fox News, would appear regularly on all of the major FNC programs and consistently, as one would expect, defended the Bush administration. Unfortunately, Bennett never disclosed the fact that his primary business venture at the time was on the administration’s payroll.

Money from a federal program intended to expand public school choice has instead been used to prop up a scheme cooked up by William J. Bennett to boost home schoolers in Arkansas, Education Week has reported.

Newspaper staffers David J. Hoff and Michelle R. Davis report that a for-profit firm called K12, Inc., run by former Education Secretary and “drug czar” Bennett, has received $4.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education…. One department employee involved in the process, who wished to remain anonymous, told Education Week, “Anything with Bill Bennett’s name on it was going to get funded.”

Possible corruption aside, as far as journalism is concerned, the problem was one of disclosure. Bennett was on the administration’s payroll while appearing on TV offering commentary about the same administration. A minimum standard of journalistic ethics suggests viewers should have been made aware of Bennett’s possible conflict of interest.

Bill Bennett seemed to believe he could secure a lucrative Bush administration contract — under suspicious circumstances — one day, then turn around and offer analysis of the administration as a political pundit the next. As long as viewers were none the wiser, Bennett figured, there’s no conflict.

And now Bennett appears to believe he can max out his contributions to John McCain one day, and then turn around and offer “neutral” commentary about McCain the next.

Remember, Mr. Bennett, disclosure is a virtue.