Wow, the media keep piling on Sheldon Adelson. Let’s remember his big crime is donating millions of dollars to Newt Gingrich’s campaign. And as we all know, there’s nothing the media like to do more than profile people who use their money to influence politics. For instance, there’s this headline yesterday on CBS News.
The big GOP prize: Shelly Adelson’s war chest
It’s a reprint from The New Republic. The message spreads.
Then there’s this, in the WaPo:
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s family is bankrolling Gingrich super PAC
No! Not his family, too. Really? Because that’s so unheard of from Obama donors. Oh. Wait.
So why do they keep pounding Adelson?
Because it’s working.
Adelson tried to bring to Nevada Republicans’ attention the fact that Saturday caucuses, by their nature, exclude religious Jews from participating. It was interpreted as trying to mess with the caucuses. End result:
Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson distanced himself Monday from a Clark County Republican decision to hold a special presidential caucus after sundown Saturday for observant Jews, saying through a spokesman he and his wife “had no involvement” in the arrangement.
The statement seemed designed to counter concerns by several presidential campaigns that the GOP was giving special consideration to Adelson, who backs presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have donated $10 million to a pro-Gingrich Political Action Committee.
They’re forcing him to back off from supporting the candidate of his choice because they’ve made him the story.
The casino magnate also has become concerned that he is overshadowing Mr. Gingrich’s campaign, according to people close to Mr. Adelson.
“He [Mr. Adelson] realizes that when you make a contribution it does become an issue and he wants the focus to remain on Newt,” said Andy Abboud, vice president of government relations at Las Vegas Sands Corp., an Adelson company. The two men will maintain a distance in Nevada this week, he said, but their paths might cross at some point. Mr. Gingrich is staying at Mr. Adelson’s Venetian casino, said Dan Burdish, who is working for Mr. Gingrich in Nevada.
(Okay, come on, let’s not pretend their paths aren’t going to cross. Really?) But still, the fact that the media have forced Adelson to back off of Newt is pretty pathetic. They did no such thing when Haim Saban was telling Harry Reid what to do.
“Let me give you an example of this access, and why it’s completely O.K.,” Saban responded. “I hosted the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, in my home. I was informed that he refused to sign a letter to Obama, which was signed by most of the senators, supporting Israel, before the speech in Cairo. . . . I got the message on Saturday and he was at my house on Sunday. I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you sign?’
“So he said, ‘Because I don’t sign other people’s initiatives,’ as the leader, as head of the Democratic Party.
“I said, ‘So send a letter of your own.’ ” And, Saban added, smiling, and with hesitation, as though he did not like to boast, “He did.”
And he bragged about it. Do you remember that New Yorker profile? Yeah, me neither. It’s from May, 2010. But although Saban’s views on Israel are pretty close to Adelson’s, we don’t hear about his “Israel-firster” attitude–because he donates to Democrats.
Double standards? But of course. That’s the way the left works. And the “objective” media.