Mickey Kaus spots the L.A. Times asleep at the wheel, as usual:

What Liberal Bias? This is the main headline on the L.A.Times web home page:

Dem score congressional victories in California, N.Y.

From staff and wire reports | 9:42 p.m.

The GOP fares better in Virginia and New Jersey as both states elect Republican governors.

* * * * * *

Thanks to alert reader KL, who speculates that not even the conservative Washington Times would try something that disoriented.

But while the L.A. Times phoned it in, at least they bothered to show up. That’s more than another spoke in the state-run media can say about last night:

MSNBC Surrenders, Chooses Not to Cover Election Night. No, Really.

It is pretty darn astounding that with all of the insistence from the White House that Fox News Channel is “not a real news network,” their preferred channel, MSNBC, did not have live coverage at 10 p.m. Eastern on ELECTION NIGHT. They reran Olbermann’s 8 p.m. coverage, which was, of course, two hours out of date. [More on Olbermann’s repeat at Newsbusters — Ed]

No, really, when you stop covering the news, people can legitimately say you’re not a news network. That has nothing to do with percieved bias or ideology (although we can speculate as to why Olbermann disappeared from the 10 p.m. coverage, where he was previously expected); it’s because you’re not actually bringing any new information to viewers.

Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center is issuing the “Dewey Defeats Truman Awards” for “the Most Incompetent Political Reporting of This Year’s Election” — but what does it say when a “news” channel checks out on the biggest news of the night?

Update: “Remember that time in ’08 when Brit Hume signed off in a huff and went home because Obama and Dems were destroying Republicans at the polls? Yeah, me neither.”