Monday Oct 31

I'd like to lauch my very first Grapevine analysis piece with a careful dissection and scathing criticsim of egregious bias on Mr. Hume's part, but today's "Grapevine" doesn't really offer much beyond garden variety right-wing tilt. Oh well, you go to press with the "Grapevine" you have, and no the one you wish you had.

Today's column consists of:

Bias
(1) A "fare thee well" to Scooter Libby that seeks to reassure the indicted Bush administration official's fans that, even if he doesn't beat the rap, Scooter will likely walk away from this whole ordeal with little more than wounded pride.

(2) More fuel for the "local New Orleans officials were to blame for the Katrina disaster, not the Bush administration" meme.

(3) Analysis of a Gallup poll on the effect of the torpedoing of Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination.

This segment may bear the most fruitful inquiry for we see Hume repeating what I feel is an emerging conservative talking point, namely, that the Miers fiasco was brought about by liberals. The right-wing wants to promote this rewriting of recent history (current events, really) so that it can promote the idea that liberals have no right to oppose the next Supreme Court nominee given that they were already offered a moderate nominee and rejected her.

Though some conservatives were sharply critical of Miers' nomination, only 34% of them said they were happy to see her withdraw, compared to 55% of liberals who said they were pleased by the decision.

(4) A summary of a Washington Post fashion writer's less than charitable comments on Harriet Miers's use of eyeliner. (The liberals in the mainstream media are a shallow bunch, you see.)

Balance
There's not much "balance" in today's column. Brit Hume does briefly cite a spokesman for LA governor Kathleen Blanco defending local authorities and laying the blame squarely on FEMA. In addition, examples of political figures who survived indictment "relatively unscathed" are drawn from both parties.