The politico has a story tonight out that reveals that Ron Fournier, the DC bureau chief of the associated press almost became a communications staffer for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.
In October 2006, the McCain team approached Fournier about joining the fledgling operation, according to a source with knowledge of the talks. In the months that followed, said a source, Fournier spoke about the job possibility with members of McCain’s inner circle, including political aides Mark Salter, John Weaver and Rick Davis.
Salter, who remains a top McCain adviser, said in an e-mail to Politico that Fournier was considered for "a senior advisory role" in communications.
As media matters has demonstrated, Fournier has shown extensive Pro-McCain bias during this campaign. Just this past week, an email conversation with Karl Rove was released.
In one email, Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this?" Fournier responded: "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."
That sign-off, which seemed to indicate an allegiance between the two men, raised hackles all over the Internet. That kind of correspondence ("Keep up the fight") between a reporter and a partisan White House aide during a campaign year lands way outside the boundaries of acceptable newsroom practices.
But Fournier, now the wire service's D.C. bureau chief, shrugged off the embarrassing revelation, conceding only: "I regret the breezy nature of the correspondence."
Fournier has attacked Mitt Romney when he was challenging McCain, and has went after both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The fact that there was a several month period where he was negotiating to join McCain 2008 is incredible in the lack of ethics he has demonstrated since then. The man is entitled to his opinion, but his readers are entitled to full disclosure.
You can not negotiate with a campaign for a job, then report on it as a "neutral observer" unless you have no standards at all. We should apply pressure on the AP to do the right thing and fire him now. More importantly, his colleagues in the profession should be leading this fight. He not only writes, but assigns stories.
Everything the AP says and does between now and November is utterly tainted by Fournier not disclosing his conflict of interest.