The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

Hubris is the second line of defense for media blowhards. The first line of defense is, of course, to ignore you. Obviously you breached his outer defenses. Well done.

Is the closest right wing analogue to Media Matters.

I did a search on their site for '"john king" and CNN' to see what I found (search url is my name):

161 hits. Ok, He's clearly mentioned there. So I opened the 4 most recent "hits" on John King and this is what the MRC "dredged" up on this liberal media elite:

October 2007:

CNN used an old tactic in the mainstream media's play book -- a person overcome by emotion -- to drive home the point they wanted to make, that the only state that hasn't been visited by President Bush is Vermont. In a segment during the 4pm EDT hour of Wednesday's Situation Room detailing this apparent "snub," CNN chief national correspondent John King played a clip from an interview of Regina Gilbert, the mother of Kyle Gilbert, who was killed serving in Iraq four years ago. Gilbert fought back tears as she made her plea for a visit from the President: "I hope he does come, to our little state, 'cause I think that we've stepped up. And I'm hoping he will reflect and step up as well." In his introduction to King's piece, host Wolf Blitzer highlighted how Vermont "was the first state to outlaw slavery...the last state to get a WalMart, and it is the only state in the union not to have been visited by President Bush." Blitzer then asked King, "Is this a snub or an oversight?" King replied, "I think you can safely say 'snub,' Wolf."

January 2007:

Fourteen months after CNN's John King showcased retired Marine Colonel Jim Van Riper to illustrate military disillusionment with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush's Iraq policy, on Tuesday night, barely an hour before the State of the Union address, King checked in from New Bern, North Carolina and again featured Van Riper's criticisms as if they had fresh meaning. In a story, near the start of the 8pm EST Situation Room, about the stresses on Marines and soldiers caused by repeated deployments to Iraq, King highlighted how "retired Marine Colonel Jim Van Riper is more optimistic now that the Pentagon is under new leadership, but says strategic blunders by the President and his team have left the military near the breaking point." Van Riper asserted: "It's a horrendous operational tempo and along with that you've got equipment problems. These men and women now are operating at a much faster pace than we did, particularly in Vietnam or Desert Shield/Desert Storm." King, who in 2005 touted Van Riper's take as "telling," then depicted Van Riper's view as "striking" in a such a pro-Bush state.

October 2006:

Lynne Cheney was right. The Vice President's wife on Friday attacked a CNN pre-election special as straight out of Democratic talking points. The program in question, "Broken Government: Power Play," aired on Thursday, October 26 and discussed presidential power. Reporter John King introduced his special that night on location at Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Close your eyes and it sounds like an ad straight out of the DNC: "Justice, on Mr. Bush's terms, would mean challenge after challenge, test after test of the balance of powers laid out in the Constitution, adopted here in Philadelphia's Independence Hall 219 years ago, written by men, who, for all their brilliance, could not have imagined jet aircraft, let alone jet aircraft used as weapons. Nor could men determined to find the lasting antidote to tyranny have imagined the Internet, spy satellites, other technological advances now so central in the war on terror. But they did warn, in this hall, time and time again of too much presidential power, creating a careful system of checks by the Congress and the courts, lines the Bush administration, in the name of protecting Americans from another attack, has repeatedly stretched, rewritten, and sometimes just ignored."

October 2006:

With a title like "Broken Government: Power Play," one could probably assume that the Thursday night at 8pm EDT CNN special wouldn't be very fair to President Bush. But just in case there were any doubt, reporter John King appeared on Thursday's American Morning to drive home the point: "It's a fascinating subject. Many say, post-9/11, this President has crossed, stretched, some say trampled the Constitution in his pursuit of the war on terrorism. The President says whatever it takes. Some say he has busted the balance of powers, if you will, the constitutional lines. The President, of course, says no. It's one of the issues we're exploring as we look at the 'Broken Government.'"

commentary to follow

and has nothing but contempt for anyone lower than himself in the courtier hierarchy around the king. Which means, specifically, Glenn (in no uncertain terms), and by implication, all of us in the great unwashed masses.

That's the reason he has his job - he is easily controllable using high school status techniques. And he preens like a cheerleader being carried around on the shoulders of the football team. Or dating the quarterback.

Simple ape-world stuff - but apparently hidden in plain sight. Even to him.

King is criticizing Glenn's work. His basis for criticizing Glenn's work is the fact that Glenn criticized King's work. I mean, did King contact Glenn to get his side of the story before sending that email?

1) Sen. McCain, as president, what will you do to reform the Veterans Administration health care and disability programs after five years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, after reports on sub-standard care at the Walter Reed Army Hospital?

2) How will you, as president, help some veterans who may have difficulty returning to civilian life? A report this week-end showed over 120 former combat soldiers have been arrested for alleged killings of people in this country following their overseas combat tours.

1) MRC isn't exactly hounding King here. These are off hand complaints about pretty ordinary stuff he's doing. Yes "Many say" can be misused to give a reporter's personal opinion under a veneer, but it is true that "many say" Bush is trampling the constitution. It wasn't "many say bush sleeps with 5 year olds." None of these items was a feature about John King, just him being mentioned in their litany of items for a given day or week. That there only 2 mentions of him in 2007 is germane too.

2) None of these are relevant to how he handles John McCain. Glenn's complaint that King favours McCain is not redressed by King purportedly kicking Bush or the right wing complaining about him. Both sides can be right about their complaints here, they don't nullify. It's perfectly plausible that King detests Bush and bashes him whenever possible (I don't see it) and loves off McCain and praises him endlessly (MM and GG make that case better).

3) MRC is (I may say) really crappy and not at all the equal of Media Matters, who does meticulous linked reserach to justify their complaints of bias. They don't just whine every time a media figure says anything critical of the left or in praise of the right, they show why it is false or misleading. MRC just catalogs everything the media says critical of conservatives, republicans, or favourable to liberals and democrats. They do link to videos of the incidents they're complaining about but they do no work to show why their complaints have merit. Did Bush ever visit Vermont? Why not? Is it unusual for a second term president to not have visited every state? Show us before grousing about it.

It speaks to the right wing's incomprehension of the idea that one can be "fair" and one can be "balanced" but usually not both. Everything King said in the complaints I looked at was justifiable.

Media Matters, on the other hand, is demonstrating that McCain's justification of his tax cut vote is not what he said at the time. That is a valid complaint. They're not complaining so much that King reports on McCain's statement, but that he uncritically accepts it without fact checking it, because it turns out to be false or at least unproven. If McCain was thinking this way when he voted he never said so.