Capital Scene: Burton Hunting

THE clearest indication yet that Democrats hope to decapitate the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee came on Thursday, April 10, in the Wall Street Journal-an Al Hunt column vilifying the committee’s chairman, Dan Burton (Ind.). In the media food chain, Al Hunt is in the spot closest to Washington’s Democratic apparatus, feasting on its handouts. The Democratic target du jour is Burton, and so Hunt hit him for his “fringe views and theories,” called one of his staffers a “wacko,” and warned that a campaign-finance allegation against Burton “could prove dreadfully serious.” That allegation was lodged by Democratic activist Mark Siegel, who Hunt assures his readers is a credible source.

Hunt should know. As he says (but not in this column) he “has known Mark going back twenty years to the 1976 campaign.” Hunt’s name pops up from time to time in Mark Siegel’s filings related to his work as a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan. In one March 1993 filing, Siegel reports talking with “Albert Hunt numerous times concerning Pakistan and the ongoing deteriorating political situation.” Another stipulates that “Mark Siegel, through Al Hunt . . . assisted in the arrangement of an interview for the Wall Street Journal with Kamran Shafi, Secretary to the Prime Minister of Pakistan.” Hunt calls his contacts with Siegel “routine,” and explains that he can’t disclose all his friendships in his column because “probably 90 per cent of the people I write about I know personally.”

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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THE clearest indication yet that Democrats hope to decapitate the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee came on Thursday, April 10, in the Wall Street Journal-an Al Hunt column vilifying the committee’s chairman, Dan Burton (Ind.). In the media food chain, Al Hunt is in the spot closest to Washington’s Democratic apparatus, feasting on its handouts. The Democratic target du jour is Burton, and so Hunt hit him for his “fringe views and theories,” called one of his staffers a “wacko,” and warned that a campaign-finance allegation against Burton “could prove dreadfully serious.” That allegation was lodged by Democratic activist Mark Siegel, who Hunt assures his readers is a credible source.

Hunt should know. As he says (but not in this column) he “has known Mark going back twenty years to the 1976 campaign.” Hunt’s name pops up from time to time in Mark Siegel’s filings related to his work as a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan. In one March 1993 filing, Siegel reports talking with “Albert Hunt numerous times concerning Pakistan and the ongoing deteriorating political situation.” Another stipulates that “Mark Siegel, through Al Hunt . . . assisted in the arrangement of an interview for the Wall Street Journal with Kamran Shafi, Secretary to the Prime Minister of Pakistan.” Hunt calls his contacts with Siegel “routine,” and explains that he can’t disclose all his friendships in his column because “probably 90 per cent of the people I write about I know personally.”