So the Federal Election Commission completed an audit of Tom Coburn's 2004 senatorial campaign, and guess what? The audit found that the campaign illegally did not itemize 18% of its contributions, as required by law, and that it failed to file over two hundred so-called "48 hour" reports detailing who contributed large amounts to Coburn's campaign in the last days of the election cycle - reports that should have covered $349,100 in donations. By law, again, voters had the right to know who was making those donations before the election, but Coburn's campaign simply did not file the required reports.

Who found this? The FEC, in auditing the Coburn campaign (as well as others). The audit does not necessarily lead to "enforcement action" - the FEC now thinks about it, and collects outside opinion, to decide if the Coburn Senatorial Committee ("CSC") needs to be punished for any of this or not. If you think they should be punished, you file a complaint with the FEC. That's exactly what Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington did, not just against CSC but against the similarly-violating campaign committees for Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and homobigot Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO).

That's news, and the AP covered it. You can read the undoctored story here from Florida, home of affected Rep. Diaz-Balart. The headline reads, "Complaints filed against campaign committees, treasurers." That is accurate.

The Oklahoman strongly supported Coburn's campaign. How does the paper cover the same news? Under this headline:

'Progressive' group complains of already reported misdeeds

Nice double-play by "The Worst Newspaper In America" - blame Coburn's misdeeds on a 'progressive' group, complain that they're old news (when they only came to light in the past few weeks), and imply that it's a settled matter when it's not. The Oklahoman also ended the story just before it explained what laws CSC violated and why they're there:

Federal campaign finance laws require candidate committees to file reports identifying contributors who donate more than $200. They also require campaign committees to file, within 48 hours of receipt, the identity of any contributor who gives $1,000 or more within 20 days of an election - so-called 48-hour reports.

"Campaign finance laws are not optional," said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. "If candidates don't want to comply with the law, they shouldn't run for office.

"Voters have a right to this information and the FEC should come down hard on campaigns that refuse to provide it," Sloan said.

[Coburn communications director John] Hart said the errors committed by Coburn's largely grassroots campaign were the result of the senator's failure to hire an FEC expert.

"The campaign committed honest mistakes but never deliberately withheld information," Hart said.

But "no-nonsense" Coburn is a complete anti-tax club-for-growth nutcase, who has demonstrated he'll stop all business in the Senate to avoid spending $10,000 on some project he thinks is pork. His attitude is very much that if Congress wants to spend the money, they can raise the taxes or cut other spending the cover it, and that if congress members aren't up to living by those rules, they shouldn't have run for office.

Isn't it absolutely amazing how the Oklahoman rewrites the headline to make Coburn look like the aggrieved party, as well as leaving out the part of the story that shows he's really big on other people obeying the rules but not so much on him doing the same thing? What an amazing coincidence.