The front page of today's Times features a ridiculous article under the headline "Secret Donors Finance Fight Against Hagel."
It's ridiculous in part because it's hypocritical. The Times publishes non-bylined editorials, often grants anonymity to sources, and accepts anonymous contributions to the Times Neediest Cases Fund, so clearly the newspaper has no blanket objection to anonymous political speech or anonymous charitable contributions. What the paper objects to, rather, is when Republicans engage in anonymous political speech.
This becomes clear when one realizes that the article omits any mention of People for the American Way or the People for the American Way Foundation. They helped to block President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. They are organized under the same sections of the tax code as the conservative groups that are trying to block President Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel to the Pentagon. Their donors are anonymous. But somehow the Times manages to leave them out of the story.
That may be because including them would undermine the hype in the article, which is the claim that "The media campaign to scuttle Mr. Hagel's appointment, unmatched in the annals of modern presidential cabinet appointments, reflects the continuing effects of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which loosened campaign finance restrictions and was a major reason for the record spending by outside groups in the 2012 election."
But the Times article itself concedes lower down that the outside groups "would have been able to operate freely against Mr. Hagel even before Citizens United."
So what's the new news here? Not much, despite the front-page placement and breathless tone — "unmatched in the annals..."