McClatchy connection to the NYT hit piece... NYT reporter has a history of shady attacks on GOP... McClatchy repaid $35,000 used in prior hit piece

Marilyn Thompson, one of the authors of the hit peice on McCain, once accepted $35,000 from a liberal activist group to write an "investigative series" on GOP Senator Mitch McConnell. When the shady deal came to light, McClatchy had to repay the $35,000 to the activist group.

One of the authors of the NYT story, Marilyn W. Thompson, is a former editor of the Herald-Leader. Thompson is no stranger to slanted, hit-piece stories aimed at prominent Republicans. In October 2006, Thompson and the Herald-Leader took money from a foundation financed by liberal groups to pay a reporter to write an investigative series on U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell.

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Howard Weaver, Vice President at McClatchy, decided to repay the $35,000 grant to the activist group. Newsbusters has more here.

UPDATE 1:35 PM: Noel Sheppard's summary:

One of the McCain sex scandal co-authors, when she was editor of one of the leading newspapers in Kentucky, took money from a liberal activist group to hire a Democrat Congressional Fellow for a hit piece on a leading Republican senator.