One of the finest recent examples of liberal media bias has been the press's hostile treatment of author Ron Suskind for having the nerve to write a book critical of the Obama administration.
As Suskind told CNN's Howard Kurtz Sunday, these are "[m]any of the folks who were praising me mightily during the Bush era" for books criticizing the previous president (video follows with transcript and commentary):
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Hasn't the Obama team succeeded in this respect: when your book first came out, the headlines were about dysfunctional administration, president, inexperienced president not ready to govern, and women in the White House felt that they were being given short shrift. Now all of the stories and interviews - and I guess we're doing it here to some extent - are about the credibility of Ron Suskind. So was this a tactic to make you the issue?
RON SUSKIND: I think that as people read the book, they're often surprised to see this is not sensational. This is very well sourced. It's complete. It's credible, and in the book, there are long passages of responses from the key actors to all of the major disclosures. That was part of the idea of making the book complete as a text in and of itself. I think much of the attacks, they came prior to the book being in people's hands. Now that it is in people's hands, already that is turning.
KURTZ: But does it disappoint you that some of the criticism from people in this administration has been so personal toward you?
SUSKIND: You know, Howie, you know as well as anybody it's a tough town. Many of the folks who were praising me mightily during the Bush era - these are the most definitive works on George Bush, this is the historical record - now are doing their best to struggle really to discredit those books and discredit this book.
KURTZ: Are you suggesting it's ideological, that some people who are liberals are perfectly happy to have you go after President Bush and not so happy to have you go after Barack Obama?
Yes, but wouldn't it be wonderful if it didn't work that way?
If Suskind was considered a credible journalist in the previous decade while he was severely criticizing one president, how does he become persona non grata for criticizing the next?
Is the bias in the media so pervasive and acknowledged that it's just accepted as a fact of life? Is impartiality in journalism really dead, and expecting otherwise just a fantasy?
How can our great nation survive if not only isn't there any objectivity in the news media, there's also no burning desire outside of the small circle of conservative analysts and commentators for there to be any?
What this episode demonstrates is that unless you toe the Democratic Party line as a journalist, you will be hounded by your colleagues even if what you report is factual.
Pretty darned scary when you think about it.
