Disclosure Row Over White House Coverage

November 18, 2009

We’ve got one brewing right now. Yuval Levin, who worked in the White House domestic policy staff as an aide to George W. Bush, now has got a gig writing news stories for Newsweek. The Nation’s Ari Melber, who got wind of this, notes that when Levin’s first piece ran in the magazine last March, the editors slugged it as an analysis from “a Bush veteran.” No such notation was attached to Levin’s new piece chronicling why “right-of-center candidates are succeeding in the age of Obama.” A few months earlier, Levin even co-authored a piece in the conservative Weekly Standard with Bill Kristol explaining why “Obamacare” was wrong and deserved to be defeated. Melber, who smelled a skunk, called Newsweek, whose spokeswoman offered a defense. (CBS News)