Misplaced Words

Quick, see if you can find out what word is missing from the lede of this Associated Press article in the NY Times:

Sen. Debbie Stabenow's campaign has corrected her campaign finance reports to show that some donations from 2002 and 2003 came from an Indian tribe then represented by now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, not an individual as she reported at the time.

Stabenow's campaign originally reported that $4,000 in donations came from Christopher Petras, who was the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe's legislative director at the time. The donations came during a period in which Stabenow and other Michigan lawmakers sought funding for the tribe and wrote letters to federal regulators on the tribe's behalf.

The campaign wrote the Federal Election Commission on April 14 to correct the report to show the donations came from the tribe. Records originally listed Petras as giving Stabenow's campaign $2,000 on March 6, 2002, and an equal amount on June 30, 2003. Copies of the checks showed the first was dated Feb. 20, 2002, and the second June 2, 2003.

Give up? The word is Democrat.

Don't bother looking for it in these paragraphs, or for that matter, in the entire article, even though Sen. Debbie Stabenow is in fact a Democrat. Apparently, the Associated Press does not want the words "Democrat" and "Abramoff" appearing in the same sentence, much less the same article.

Miraculously, the AP does find a way to run this story with the Republican Party mentioned three times, twice directly relating it to Jack Abramoff.

Just so we're clear, the Associated Press would like to remind us that whole Jack Abramoff affair is a Republican scandal.

Please ignore that all but five Democratic Senators took contributions from Abramoff's clients. Ignore that Democrat Debbie Stabenow is re-writing her campaign report, and please, ignore the recent ethics complaint filed against Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for taking up to $66,000 from Abramoff's clients.

You wouldn't want these inconvenient facts to get in the way of a good narrative, would you?