No Liberal Bias Here

The New York Times' December Surprise:

We all remember Hillary Rodham Clinton's charge of a "vast right-wing conspiracy": the allegation that there were a bunch of right-wingers out to get her husband, hoping to impeach him and dance on his grave. Admittedly, there were many such individuals. Mrs. Clinton also correctly identified certain sources in the food chain. Where she was wrong was her allegation of an organized conspiracy.

Now, however, there is a vast left-wing movement to get George W. Bush, an effort never more apparent than on Friday, December 16, 2005, the day after the incredible Iraqi elections.

As someone who has been cautiously optimistic over whether the Middle East could democratize, I was thrilled with the results. It was a huge vindication for Bush, who is now a proven visionary, one that history will not be able to deny.

As for the left, which should be ecstatic over this triumph of Wilsonian idealism, there is a seething rage over George W. Bush's renewed success. "Progressives" were hoping for his ignominy, a crash and burn in Saddam's former Republic of Fear, now en route to an actual republic, a Republic of Promise.

On Friday, I watched anxiously to see how liberal reporters would swallow what was, for them, a terrible political loss. How would they cover this achievement? I hurried to the web to check the reaction of the New York Times, the Grand Central Station for liberal enmity toward the president.

I got my answer: The Times rolled out a gem examining whether the Nixonian George W. Bush has been spying on innocent Americans with the sinister assistance of dark forces at the National Security Agency.

For liberals, it was beautiful. The liberal media nurses at the breast of the New York Times. In this period of ugly, white-hot hatred of the so-called Religious Zealot in Chief, liberals each morning look in eager expectation to the Times for fodder for their cannons, something to satiate their hunger.

Well, on Friday, the Times came through in spades. The rest of the collective media had its ticket to ride-off to the races, so excited and effective that even Rush Limbaugh was forced to devote his broadcast not to the success in Iraq but to responding to the latest Times salvo. The Times's desperate gasp to knock the Iraq triumph from the front pages would be comical if it were not so sad.

The conspiracy isn't that vast. How many media outlets and lefty pols simply faithfully regurgitate whatever The Times happens to say on a given day?

There new slogan really ought to be, "We think so you don't have to."