See how I just deflected that? Fox News, HOW DARE YOU.

Actually MSM, how dare you - so saith the blogs who are up in arms at the barest of ripples the Air America "Thanks for the $875,000 loan, disadvantaged kids!" scandal.

If you haven't heard - and it's not unlikely, though the story is now starting to swell - Air America's former development director Evan Cohen received approximately $875,000 in loans for himself and for the network from the Bronx-based nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club. According to the
NY Sun, the shady loan was part of the reason the Gloria Wise organization had millions of dollars of city grants and contracts suspended (based on allegations of "significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies"). Air America has said it is appalled to have been associated with this and has pledged to return the money...in installments over two years, which still have yet to commence.

Obviously, this looks sketchy in the extreme (note that neither Cohen nor Air America have been charged with a crime). Even so, as Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarter's says in this Weekly Standard article, it's weird that the MSM hasn't jumped on this - you've got a corporation borrowing a massive sum of money from a federally-funded non-profit aimed at helping needy kids and Alzheimer's patients - and then dragging its feet on paying it back. Like the Rove/Plame affair, which broke a full week before the Times addressed it in print, the Air America story has not yet cracked the august pages of the Gray Lady, though it has garnered coverage in the NY Daily News, The Post, The Sun and of course the blogs (though really, who reads blogs? Ha). It's a valid point, one which - yes - was made on Fox this evening during Greta Van Susteren's reporting from Aruba. I mean, a story is a story is a story, and this is, let's face it, a story (however I may feel about Rachel Maddow). Hopefully in the next few days both Air America and the MSM will act, if only to put a stop to Michelle Malkin being right.

Lib Radio Loses Excuse For Loan-Repay Delay [NY Post]
Funds of a Bronx Youth Group Allegedly Lent to Air America [NY Sun]
Mainstream media ignores Air America story [Weekly Standard]