Hugh Hewitt, via Instapundit, makes the point.

We're not particularly upset if the media chooses to not report on the Kerry affair(s). If the media is taking the position that such things have little to do with a candidate's fitness for office, that's fine with us.

We begin to grow angry, however, when, as usual, one standard-- a tough, harsh one -- is applied to Republicans, and another entirely different standard-- forgiving, protective -- is applied to Democrats.

Compare the media frenzy over the Bush AWOL charge -- a charge refuted by overwhelming documentary and now eyewitness testimony -- and the media's rather breezy reaction to the Kerry Affair(s).

The media always claims that there is some neutral "rule" or standard which requires that they play up Republican "scandals" while refusing to report on Democratic ones. Trouble is, when the situation is reversed -- that is, when a Republican seems as if he should benefit from an earlier "rule" that protected a Democrat -- suddenly the "rule" is no longer in effect, or is, the media claims, rendered inoperative by "different circumstances."

The only "circumstances" which are consistently obvious in any of these decisions is what letter parenthetically follows a candidates name, D or R.

Let's look the "Bush AWOL" charge. The media did its level best to protect Clinton from draft-dodging charges; not only was the story never well reported, but the media was forever writing "context" pieces to mitigate and explain away Clinton's draft-dodging. We can't count the number of pieces which ran in Time and Newsweek by liberal boomers explaining, "You have to understand how truly unpopular this war was at the time..."

Are these context pieces running now in defense of George W. Bush? Of course not. The media is actually underplaying the actual facts which exonerate him, never mind providing "context" to mitigate the charges if taken as true.

Turnipseed's quote about never seeing George W. Bush on base is repeatedly endlessly; his other quotes, where he says he would not necessarily have any reason to remember Bush, and can't say that Bush wasn't on base, and that he can't even recall if he himself spent much time on the base during the period in question, are almost never repeated.

And the media invents a new "rule" to explain why it's so critical that they report on Bush's evidence-free AWOL "scandal," while soft-playing Clinton's actual outright draft-dodging: Because, ummm, oh, because there's a war on! That's it! There's a war! Different circumstances, you see.

Seems to us that there was also a war on when the draft-avoiding Howard Dean was the presumtive front-runner for the Democratic nominee. Strangely enough, this "there's a war on!" rule didn't seem to apply when the likely Democratic nominee seemed to be more vulnerable on the issue than Bush.

Only when a liberal candidate percieved as better on the question than Bush became the front-runner did the "There's a war on!" rule come into sudden existence.

Compare this coverage to that of Kerry's affair(s). George W. Bush's "scandal" has been disproven by documentary and eyewitness tesitmony of those who remember serving with him; Kerry's scandal hasn't been refuted by anyone, except Kerry himself, who doesn't seem to necessarily be a disinterested source on the matter. True, there's no evidence on the record that Kerry has had affairs; but then, there is no longer any evidence on the record that Bush went AWOL, either.

And yet the media keeps digging on Bush, demanding he release his military records to disprove something already disproved; they make no similar demands that Kerry assist in resolving his own scandal.

Are the media now convinced that sleazy sexual conduct has no bearing on a candidate's candor, character, or fitness for office? Could be-- but they seemed to be awfully interested in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger (R, in case you couldn't guess). Decades-old charges of groping, many from anonymous sources, were reported just before a critical vote in his political career (the recall election).

Compare that with the media's total blackout of the Juanita Broadrick rape allegation against Clinton. Yes, NBC eventually ran a heavily-edited version of the story on Dateline (and not on the regular nightly news, indicating to any viewer that NBC did not deem the story either relevant or credible).

But NBC embargoed that report until after a critical vote in Clinton's political career-- the impeachment trial.

The media is forever making up new rules, and new sub-rules, and new sub-sub-rules, to explain why negative stories about Republicans get great play before elections, while similar negative stories about Democrats get no play at all or are embargoed until after the crucial day of public voting. Their system of "rules," as they claim them to be, are contradictory and nonsensical and apparently riddled with exceptions and sub-exceptions and sub-sub-exceptions.

Meanwhile, there's a simple rule that explains their varying responses with perfect consistency, simplicity, and predictability -- run the story on Republicans, embargo it with regard to Democrats.

Quite a long time ago there was a model of planetary motion that put the earth in the center of the universe. The model actually worked, in the sense that you could predict where Mars and Jupiter would be in the sky by using it; but it was hiddeously complicated and had planets suddenly reversing course and doubling-back and turning in strange circles from time to time in order to explain their movements.

Gallileo argued that another theory was almost certainly correct-- that the planets actually moved in fairly simple eliptical orbits, with no bizzare retrograde movement or the like. This theory also worked, and was much more simple and elegant than the old theory. Of course, this theory was very controversial with the establishment, because it forced them to admit something they didn't want to, namely, that the earth was not in the center of the universe.

See, once you accepted that the earth was also moving in its very own elliptical orbit, the newish theory explained, very simply, why Mars would appear to move backwards periodically. It wasn't that Mars was actually moving backwards; it was just that it appeared to do so, because the vantage point-- earth-- was itself also moving, and occasionally overtaking Mars and passing it, like runners on a track.

Once that fact could be admitted, it would become obvious that the simple and elegant theory propounded by Galilleo was correct. In science, as between two theories which both "work" in the sense that they successfully predict and explain observed phenomenon, the simpler theory is usually taken as the true one.

But that fact couldn't be admitted for a long, long time; the establishment was too committed to, and invested in, the earth-centric model.

We have a similar situation today. The media would like you to believe that their various inconsistencies, contradictions, and apparent double-standards are actually all perfectly neutral and natural. Sure, their rules (and sub-rules, and sub-sub-rules, and exceptions, and sub-exceptions, and sub-sub-exceptions) consitute a hiddeously complex system which makes no real sense upon inspection; but they claim these labrythine rules explain their decisions without recourse to political ideology.

On the other hand, there's a much simpler and elegant theory that explains all of their decisions with perfect clarity and predictability, and doesn't involve six thousand "rules" and "exceptions" and "special caveats" and "special circumstances obviating the general rule." That theory is that they're liberal, and slant their coverage to favor liberal candidates and causes.

The establishment doesn't much like that theory. The establishment would like to maintain that "objectivity" and "neutrality" are at the heart of the media world, the earth about which all the media universe revolves.

Gallileo would likely disagree. He'd note the other theory -- the theory the media establishment doesn't like -- explains everything perfectly neatly with one general rule. He'd propose that objectivity isn't the lodestar at the heart of their media universe. Rather, at the heart of the media universe is a core set of potent political and cultural biases.

And, of course, he'd be excommunicated from the liberal church for doing so.

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