Post Editorial as "Liberal Media?"

The editorial in today's Washington Post on the health care debate is an interesting case-in-point in discussing conservative claims of a "liberal bias" in the mainstream media. While acknowledging that the Republican opposition to health care reform is essentially characterized by outright false claims, the bulk of the editorial castigates President Obama and other Democrats for lesser distortions.

Republican lawmakers and conservative activists have fanned the flames of uninformed opposition with familiar warnings about government-run health care and socialized medicine and irresponsible new twists, such as the suggestion that the proposals under discussion would strong-arm seniors into euthanasia.

More fundamentally, the Obama administration is peddling health reform as an everybody-wins scenario in which no one, except perhaps the wealthiest of the wealthy, has to sacrifice anything. We recognize that selling dessert is easier than selling spinach, especially when the other side is falsely claiming that your food is poisonous. But if health reform passes and starts bringing down costs, it is going to pinch some patients who have become accustomed to getting every test or procedure they want. At that point, Mr. Obama might wish he had done a little more to prepare people for the changes.

What is going on here? Post opinion page editor Fred Hiatt has frequently been accused of having a conservative bias by the liberal blogosphere, particularly in his support of the war in Iraq and sponsorship of partisan conservative columnists George Will and Charles Krauthammer. Short of an outright bias, I wonder if Hiatt may tip the scales so that the two sides attain a false equivalence in the name of "balance."

--Ballard Burgher