My question was about your belief that Vitter is a hypocrite – not media bias.

The talking point on the Left – which you just repeated – when the scandal blew up was that Vitter’s opposition to gay marriage was “hypocritical” because he had once committed adultery. Completely downplayed in the entire story was that Vitter, unlike Clinton, confessed to his wife, confessed to his priest, and freely underwent counseling long before the DC Madam and her clientele list was exposed.

That makes Vitter *not* a hypocrite – by comparison, Clinton needed to get caught first. This idea that once one has never committed X, one cannot be opposed to X because that would be “hypocritical”, is one of the Left’s most cherished beliefs.

Apart from the happy “coincidence” that it provides a handy club for silencing opponents with an ad hominem argument, it validates the Lefty inclination toward validating/celebrating inequity i.e. “… if it feels good, do it.”

To be honest, the argument you use to support the notion that the media is an “equal-opportunity offender” when it comes to scandals was tired ten years ago … and it’s still tired now.

Basically, you’re saying that the media only appears to be biased because of such and such extenuating circumstances (in which you hilariously include a “slow news cycle”) which makes it (to you) understandable that they would loudly trumpet this particular scandal involving a Republican doing X – while downplaying that scandal involving a Democrat also doing X, loudly trumpeting the partisan affiliation of Republican caught doing Y – while not mentioning at all the partisan affiliation of Democrat caught doing the exact same Y.

That’s some major league BS.

Your “context” argument is just as suspect – if one of (for example) John Boehner’s children are photographed smoking a joint, I would bet you anything that the number of stories making it to print on the “scoop” that would shoehorn Ashley Biden’s coke snorting you would be able to count on one hand, with fingers left over. The way the Press went after Bristol Palin (and the Bush twins before her) made a complete mockery of their promise to keep the candidates’ families out of political coverage.

So, predictably, they couched the fact that photographers were sent to waylay a sixteen year old girl, already in a difficult situation, at her school, as a story about the McCain campaign’s “vetting process” – one of the more lame ass fig-leafs I’ve ever heard.

But you gullibly swallow it hook, line and sinker – and expect us to follow you in doing so. That’s not gonna happen. There’s always some fig-leaf “extenuating circumstance” – some caveat, some exception, some “narrative context” to explain it all away, why this Republican’s family or associations are fair game, while a Democrat gets actively protected from similar treatment.

Ace memorably wrote about this a long while back (in the middle of the Bush-Kerry race), and it applies now just as much as it ever did;

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.

Only this time, do it on the thread that [Martin challenged you on] instead of trying to skate on by by putting it here, and actually answer the question.

And this time, do it in 100 words or less.