The major media are desperate to avoid scrutiny of how or where leftist billionaire George Soros is getting the tens of millions of dollars that he is using to finance anti-Bush advertising campaigns and pro-Democratic Party political efforts before the November 2 election.
The reluctance is partly explained by Soros' media ties. He has been an investor in the Times Mirror Company, which merged with the Tribune Company. This media conglomerate today publishes 13 daily newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and Newsday. The company's broadcasting group includes 26 television stations.
But Soros is linked to literally dozens of other businesses and corporations, some of them off-shore and beyond the reach of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the federal agency that subjects American companies to disclosure and oversight.
On the face of it, Soros has acted in a deceptive manner. He promoted passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, supposedly to restrict the ability of special interest groups to influence the race for the White House. But he then took advantage of a notorious loophole in the law through which he has provided massive funding of controversial "527" organizations, designated as such under the Internal Revenue Code. These groups can receive and spend unlimited amounts of money on the presidential contest. They are required to report their expenditures but their funders, such as Soros, are under no obligation to identify where their money is coming from. This opens the door to foreign money and foreign manipulation of the U.S. presidential election.
It could be "Chinagate" all over again.
The Republicans, supposedly the party of "fat cats" and Big Business, are being vastly outspent in this area.
Much of the background and history of Soros, who emigrated to the U.S., is not known. His fortune was made through manipulation of international financial markets and foreign currencies, a field that is still largely unregulated. He has controversial investments in places like Colombia, where the banks have been penetrated by drug cartels eager to launder their drug money.