I appreciate your acknowledgment of how wrong-headed those example comments (Maddow's re: RFK) are.

Who are your candidates? Lanny Davis? Mark Penn? Taylor Marhs? Who should get the slot instead?

Um, no. Why does being bothered by blatant fabrications about Hillary Clinton mean that I demand the media be comprised of pro-Hillary partisans? I'd like the media to be honest and fair, and it's why I was scandalized when large parts of the left blogosphere turned a blind eye (and frequently cheered [and, no, that doesn't mean *you*]) when the media viciously lied about one centrist Democrat, while it spun in leg-tingling favor of another.

Two of my favorite bloggers (sorry, I'm a little short on respected TV figures right now) throughout the campaign were Avedon Carol and Arthur Silber (wherever he may be now), both of whom seriously dislike the Clintons. But they never wrote a word that looked to me to be dishonest.

Maddow's credibility (and/or insight) came into question (or should have) when she propagated blatantly false narratives. I appreciate that she's not a rightwinger at heart, but I have no appetite for watching or listening to her when I've seen her cut corners on the truth and sit idly by while Olbermann went McCarthyesque in his Hillary witch-hunt and joined the fun in her own segments.

Have you watched Olbermann's report on RFK-gate?

http://www.correntewire.com/everything_old_is_new_again_0

It's truly remarkable, a real contender for the 10 most scurrilous minutes of news journalism of my lifetime. That report (which, disturbingly, the Obama camp found worthy enough to send to the entire Beltway media pool) rivals anything I've ever seen from Fox News for sheer blind, dishonest, firebreathing hate.

Maddow was an active contributor to msnbc's slanted coverage of the campaign, scoring similar points if with a little less bravado than some of her colleagues.

None of this is to dismiss your thesis here, that there are double-standards in place, where only one political wing is allowed to have representation on the airwaves.

I've just lost enthusiasm for Ms. Maddow, because she blissfully played along with another double-standard.

Mirrors are quite inexpensive and come in handy at times.

You don't have a problem with her saying things that aren't factually true, you have a problem with her giving her opinion when it is not favorable to your preferred candidate.

It's factually untrue that Hillary Clinton publicly speculated about Obama's assassination.

Note: posts linked below contain/refer to four-letter words...

http://tinyurl.com/5kjo3f

http://www.correntewire.com/argus_endorsing_hillary_proves_that_the_whole_rfk_scandal_is_a_typical_obama_crock

I haven't had the opportunity to scour through her archives, but it was plain as day that -- especially after the Dem race narrowed to two candidates -- msnbc had its thumb on the scale in a big way.

From literally the second that the votes were counted in 2006, Chris Matthews said things like this:

We were watching Hillary Clinton earlier tonight; she was giving a campaign barn-burner speech, which is harder to give for a woman; it can grate on some men when they listen to it -- fingernails on a blackboard, perhaps.

... she'll have to go head-to-head with this president. How does she do it without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?

...it's a yelling match among -- and that clapping. I just don't get it. It's not appealing. It's Chinese or something. I mean, what is this applauding yourself thing all about? I don't -- I don't get it. And then, of course, him [President Clinton] playing Lothar behind her, like he's the -- she's the Phantom -- this gigantic guy behind her and he's just there. It's a strange sight.

In that segment, Matthews also made a little hay with Obama's middle name, but that was pre-leg tingle and just quick aside.

Olbermann was with Matthews during this and didn't dispute him, just went "hmmm-mmm," though near the end he started to interject with perhaps a little disagreement but got cut off.

Before long, Olbermann began making a routine of trashing Hillary himself, David Shuster said she was "pimping" her daughter, and Maddow was a party to this slanted coverage. She certainly didn't establish herself as a defender against it, and when it hit perhaps its zenith (nadir) with RFK-gate, she was fully on-board.

How routinely she was an active participant/propagator of this, I couldn't tell you, but the part I saw made a rather disturbing impression, and it was after months and months of this behavior from her colleagues, so it's not like she shouldn't have known what pool she was swimming in.

If it was truly anomalous and she regrets it, I'd like to hear that. But I'd also like to know why she continued to collaborate uncomplaining (to the best of my knowledge) on a program that was positively riddled with such false and demeaning coverage.