You can no longer say that the media is a bastion of liberalism, seeing that five of the six top media conglomerates in the world are owned by conservative men. Well, unless you happen to be working for that conservative owner, you might be able to get away with claiming that liberals run the media. Liberals and Jews. And worse yet, liberal Jews.

The paranoids on squawk radio love to invoke liberals, apparently lost on the irony that millions of people listen to their programs, who wouldn't describe themselves as liberal on anything other the number of bullets they might pump into federal agents. Also lost is the fact that most talk-radio programming is made up of very rich talk hosts who pretend they're blue-collar workers and screech, bib-dribble and spoon-clang about godless liberals -- kinda like Bill O'Reilly, host of the very popular "O'Reilly Factor" on Fox who bagged a cool $4 million last year but still insists he's working class. (Fats Limbaugh probably thinks the same.)

Was it good for you? A Washington Press Corps reporter gets rewarded for a press release well done.

But the biggest surprise is the shift in American journalism: once residents of the hallowed fourth estate, journalists have now de-evolved into Kato Kaelin in the guesthouse. With the exit of Bill Clinton, the media now had to figure out what to do: after eight years of constant investigation and hostility against the Clintons, the media demurred and turned into a steno pool when it came to the new (unelected) president. Gone were serious questions into George W. Bush's practices as a failed Texas oilman, and the very real trail of fraud that has clung to members of his Administration. Gone were calls for independent counsels, as the Washington Post called for in a 1995 editorial about (drum roll, please) Whitewater, but when Bush's problematic role at Harken started coming to light, insisted in a recent editorial that this was old news and didn't serve the interests of the country?

You would have to be very, very, very ignorant to miss that Clinton's press was almost uniformly negative, and that the press has been very giving with Bush. Remember that story about alleged vandalism outgoing Clinton staffers left? The GAO (and the behest of impeachment swineherd Bob Barr) concluded that there was no vandalism as had been described by none other than Ari Fleischer, who is quite possibly the most unpleasant pasty white guy we've ever seen. His mere visage reminds me of that famous phrase, the "banality of evil." (Incidentally, on the subject of Bob Barr, he actually filed suit against Clinton, James Carville and Larry Flynt for $30 million due to stress and other ailments he suffered because of the impeachment proceedings. Let's hope that in Hell, he's gets to be under a large mountain of soiled blue Gap dresses.)

The Washington Steno Pool has asked no questions, and actually allowed themselves to be browbeaten by Fleischer, who warned them "to watch what they say," now that we are at war. There has been hardly a whisper when Fleischer lies to the assembled press pool. It's a little like watching a cliché from a porno film, where the beautiful girl does anything to get the part by blowing the hedgehog producer who has all the power. Once spent, the man pats the girl on the ass and sends her on her merry way.

Journalism has done nothing to salvage its reputation. After feeding on Clinton (whom they hated because he was one of them, and baby boomers love nothing more than tout their own self-importance), they decided now to lounge around languidly, patting themselves on the back for a job well done. When the final report on Whitewater and entire Lewinsky nonsense was issued, it barely registered on the media radar -- because there is nothing like admitting that you might have actually been wrong about calling for someone's head. Yet if any negative press on the Bush Administration manages to escape the Negativity Embargo, you can count on the media to disseminate its own opinion: witness Cokie Roberts' spirited emphasis that the SEC "exonerated" Bush when it initially investigated his Harken stock sale several years ago, when it fact, the SEC literally spelled out in its letter to Bush that its dropped investigation should not be considered any form of vindication.

"Don't worry baby. It's for the good of the country." The Washington Press Corps gets for its White House close-up.

The media's free pass to the Bush Administration is nothing short of astonishing, unless you think of it has a hangover cure for the last eight years. And while not all of the press coverage of pResident Bush has not been uncritical, the serious issues that have been coming to light in the past several months does not seem to warrant the same attention Whitewater evoked. What with stories of intelligence information about terrorists planning to strike being either ignored or not taken seriously enough by the White House; the drain of pension and retirement funds, and stunning corruption practices being exposed, the outcries surrounding Whitewater, Filegate, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and the bogus vandalism stories stand out as banal trivialities. If you think the Clinton Administration was incompetent in its handling of the myriad problems blown up to be scandals, what do you say about the stonewalling "Vice" President Dick Cheney has resorted to in refusing to turn over records about his tenure at Halliburton? Bush's lie that he even knew Kenneth Lay, the rich poor boy of Enron? Or Bush's changing story about the sale of Harken stock? The lack of interest in following up on these stories by the media is disturbing, but then again, perhaps they just comfortably swallowed Bush's comments about corporate scandals: that Americans were tired of hearing about them, that other things were more important, and that we all had better things to do, like loving one another.

Move along people. Nothing to see here.