Could this be a sign of things to come?

Now that CNBC Chicago Mercantile Exchange reporter Rick Santelli has mysteriously disappeared from the spotlight after his criticism of President Barack Obama's mortgage proposal in February and now that CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has been marginalized after his lackluster appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" on March 12, could the new target of the Obama machine and the left and their accomplices in the media be CNBC "The Kudlow Report" host Larry Kudlow?

James Rainey, a columnist for The Los Angeles Times, set his sights on Kudlow in his March 13 column. Kudlow's show is one of the last vestiges of pro-free market capitalism left at a time when populism has become the theme of the day.

Rainey's column, headlined as a critique of CNBC focused on two personalities - Kudlow and Cramer, even though Cramer has been raked over the coals since he made his March 3 remarks calling Obama's policies "greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president."

[HT: Patterico.] Check out the headline from the November 14, 2008, column by Los Angeles Times "media critic" James Rainey:

Right-wing radio sounds false alarm on 'Fairness Doctrine': Impose a mandate on broadcasters to balance their political views? That would be onerous indeed. But memo to Rush: Nobody's asking for that.

"Nobody's asking for that"? Not quite. As Patterico and Hot Air's Ed Morrissey have pointed out with video testimony, Sen. Chuck Schumer, for one, is quite hip to the idea.

In what can only be described as delusional, Los Angeles Times writer James Rainey attempted to castigate the right wing media as a bitter and resentful group of shameless journalists - attributes that can only describe the liberal media's behavior for at least eight years now.

The title itself, ‘Right-wing media feeds its post-election anger,' demonstrates that Rainey will not be pulling any punches with his article.  But why is he focusing on the reaction of conservative talk show hosts less than one week after Obama's election?  Did he forget the liberal media's - nay, the mainstream media's - chronic case of misplaced anger since election night of 2000?

The answer, of course, is no.  Rainey's employer, the LA Times, has been one of the biggest offenders of liberal media ignorance in quite some time.  After all, The Times has produced rants that read like a rap sheet of bias. 

An examination of the piece follows...

CNN practiced a more subtle form of bias during two reports in October by using its on-screen graphics. On October 14th's Newsroom program, a graphic accompanying a segment on Sarah and Todd Palin's connections to the Alaskan Independence Party proclaimed “The Palins and the Fringe.” On the other hand, a chyron from a report on Tuesday's Situation Room about Barack Obama making campaign stops in bad weather raved, “Braving Rain & Attacks: Obama in PA. and Virginia.”

The Situation Room led its 4 pm Eastern hour on Tuesday with reports on the day's campaign stops by John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama. Host Wolf Blitzer introduced these reports by highlighting how “[a]ll three began the day in Pennsylvania, braving some pretty nasty weather and some bitter attacks.” Correspondent Dana Bash then detailed the Republican candidates' push in Pennsylvania, including how McCain had to cancel a rally due to rain. The graphic which accompanied Bash's report made no mention of the weather, but focused instead on the McCain campaign's emphasis on the tax issue: “McCain-Palin One-Two Punch: Hitting Obama On Taxes.”

Rather than deliver a single revelation, the 24-hour cable news channel coughed up a reheated, overwrought and misleading story that seemed designed to yoke Sarah Palin and her husband to the most extreme secessionists in Alaska.

That's how Los Angeles Times's James Rainey characterized an October 14 effort by CNN's Rick Sanchez to portray Gov. Sarah Palin as a shady secessionist who would like to see Alaska break away from the United States. Sanchez even went as far as to raise the specter of Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Rainey began his October 15 column, "CNN bid to tie Palin to secessionists is a stretch," by noting the Geraldo-like melodrama with which the network's Rick Sanchez teased the story of overblown political intrigue:

At least, that's what James Rainey would like you to believe.

Further review of Rainey's piece shows that the examples he highlights of supposedly equal and fawning treatment of John McCain and Barack Obama is not so equal.

In fact, so ridiculous are the comparisons, I thought for a moment  the joke was on me--that Rainey's piece was a send-up of local media, a SNL-style parody.

But there's no joke here. That is, none that were intentional.

Los Angeles Times staff writer James Rainey has an article today taking a look at the lack of love for John McCain on YouTube compared to the multiple hosannas found when searching for videos of the Obamessiah:

Search "John McCain" on YouTube and you'll find the latest broadside, by Brave New Films of Culver City, and a lot more that's not good for a candidate who's built his reputation on constancy and authenticity.

[...]

Six of the top 10 videos returned by a "John McCain" YouTube search Thursday pegged the 71-year-old as inconsistent, extreme, wooden or a combination of the three. (The one clearly favorable piece came from the McCain campaign and focused on his Navy service.)

In Monday's Los Angeles Times, reporter James Rainey raised the issue of a conflict between political reporting and family ties: "Some of America's most prominent political journalists are, quite literally, wedded to the 2008 presidential race: Their spouses work for one of the candidates." Rainey made a short list of four of the conflicted: