Barr’s slush fund

The AJC’s front-page story Sunday about Bob Barr’s PAC was a great read and months overdue. Barr has been using the PAC to finance his own career as a speaker and political pundit, but raising the money from donors by telling them they’re advancing conservative causes. The normally media-friendly Barr’s testy answers to the AJC said it all: “I will not be cross-examined” and “next question!” This issue will short-circuit his already-hopeless Libertarian presidential campaign.

The AJC first broached the issue in a “Q&A In the News” brief, when a reader asked about the breakdown of Barr’s PAC. The AJC blandly reported that Barr kept the vast majority of the PAC’s proceeds to pay salary and office expenses. At that point, any news media outlet should have seen the red flag and uncovered what the AJC did Sunday.

Our only complaint is the AJC’s wimpy headline: “Does he spend it wisely?” The real question is whether Barr, a former AJC columnist, was duping contributors and lining his own pockets.