David Thomson’s comment is spot on. Conservatives and Republicans can never count on the media to fairly cover corruption by Dems. I recall reading, probably in Newsbusters or some similar blog, that the Today show last year went three days into coverage of the Spitzer flameout last year before considering it useful to mention that the governor of New York was a Democrat. We’ve seen many other examples of this “name that party” game, in which media reports of scandals involving Democrats bury any reference to the party of the miscreant deep in the article, if the party is mentioned at all. By contrast, news reports concerning Republicans invariably begin: “Republican Senator Larry Craig …” or “Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) …” in the lead paragraph, and then continue to remind the listener or reader of the party affiliation throughout the story.
Of course, part of this can be attributed to the fact that corrupt Democrats are “dog bites man” stories — not news. Corrupt Republicans, on the other hand, are news: “man bites dog.”
