Andy Barr

Andy Barr is just the latest political reporter to go through the revolving door into the realm of partisan politics.

Oddly enough Barr is leaving the inside-the-Beltway tabloid Politico just as a former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) staffer is joining the paper.

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell discussed the MSM-Democratic politics nexus in an interview on "Fox & Friends" on Friday.

You can watch the full segment in a video embedded below the page break:

The nation's elite journalists are forever denying that they have a liberal bias. Of course, the evidence in their reporting proves that claim false every day. One other thing belies their claims--the revolving door between the self-described "mainstream media" and Democrats. There simply is nothing like it for conservatives and Republicans looking to get into elite journalism.  

The latest example of this phenomenon comes from Beltway insider publication Politico where the revolving door spun both directions on the same day with one reporter leaving the paper to work for Democrats in Arizona and another coming into the paper fresh from a gig working with Senate Democrats.

During Tuesday's 1PM ET hour on MSNBC, anchor Andrea Mitchell highlighted a new poll from the left-wing pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood that claimed that voters do not trust Sarah Palin on so-called "women's health issues": "A new poll suggests that she may have a tough time getting voters to trust her on at least one front....54% of registered voters do not trust Palin on those issues."

Later in the same segment, deciding to get in a few more shots at Palin, Mitchell claimed that the former Alaska governor's new book, 'America by Heart,' had not appeared on the New York Times best seller list: "All of a sudden, Sarah Palin, with a new book, is not on the list....unless there was something wrong with my edition of The New York Times, she's not on it, with a book that's just come out." Well, apparently there was something wrong with the Times' Sunday December 5 best seller list, because its December 12 list had Palin's book debuting at number two behind George W. Bush's 'Decision Points.'

It's an archaic way of thinking - unless it's imposed upon conservatives, then it's OK. It's this notion that commentators that are right-of-center should know their place - that place being only in the realms of talk radio or on the Fox News Channel. Otherwise, it is unacceptable.

Now Politico has joined the fray and is taking news tips from left-wing storefronts that have staked out RedState.com founder Erick Erickson's Macon, Ga. radio show on Newstalk 940 WMAC, to capture any sort of gotcha moment to embarrass Erickson. And all of this seems to have been spurred on by CNN's announcement last month that Erickson would be a network contributor.

At issue is Erickson's claim he would pull a shotgun on an American Community Survey (ACS) worker, an organization that is part of the U.S. Census Bureau, if he attempted to approach his home. However, Erickson's statement has been framed by his critics that he is attempting to prevent the Census Bureau from fulfilling a constitutional requirement, and that has been deemed "threatening" by Andy Barr of Politico in an April 2 post.

Andy Barr at Politico shamelessly slanted the fuss over Haiti hot talk on Friday, insisting it was only about Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh, and slamming NewsBusters as one of the "very few" sites defending Rush’s Haiti commentary.

The story was featured on the Yahoo! home page on Friday with a picture of Limbaugh and the headline "Limbaugh criticized." Barr insisted:

John Amato from the left-leaning website Crooks and Liars added that "with thousands of people dead already and as the suffering continues in Haiti, Limbaugh and his ilk only care about one thing: destroying Obama."

The conservative media watchdog site Newsbusters stepped up to defend Limbaugh, saying his comments were not put in proper context, but very few others are backing the conservative firebrand’s latest controversial remarks.

On today's Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan gathered his loyalist liberal media friends to deride Sarah Palin's recent speech to investors in Hong Kong, wherein she made the observation that government programs often create new problems, which are then tackled by eager politicians with what else but even more government programs. 

First, in the interest of fairness, it must be noted that the guest from the Huffington Post and Vanity Fair, Vickie Ward, barely uttered a word in the entirety of the segment.

That's because she was laughing.

Here's what caused Ward's giggle-fit:

RATIGAN: I want to go to Andy Barr at Politico.  Palin on health reform.  This one made a little bit less sense.  But I feel like it's very indicative, Andy, of certain aspects of right-wing talking points which look to demonize the government inherently, as opposed to looking at government as a tool that can either be abused, misused, or screwed up.  Right?  And so that rhetoric is evident here. [reading] 'It's common sense that government attempts to solve problems like the health care problem will just create new problems.' Now, forget the nonsensical aspect of that.