Byron – When I first started reading your post I was getting a sense of dread that I might actually think MoveOn.org has a point. I now think they have half a point, which is disturbing enough.

While I think Reliable Sources is generally an honest broker and books many of its panels based on the merits of the conversation it will generate (hardly sacrilege in TV journalism) as a general rule I think it’s fair to complain about the way ideological balance is set up on television shows. The best examples, I think, are the panels on Fox News Sunday and Special Report. I am a huge fan of both shows and watch them regularly. But I do think it is unfair that Mara Liason is regularly paired with Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes. Liason is a professional reporter, Barnes and Krauthammer are pundits. They’re both honorable and honest men, but their job is to mix their ideological perspective with their analysis. Liason’s not supposed to do that. And, I think she actually does an outstanding job managing that straddle.

As for your case in particular, I think you’re fairly rare on the right as we don’t have nearly enough serious reporters. I doubt MoveOn would object to reporters from the New Republic or the Nation serving as impartial analysts. It’s just that they think conservative honest reporter is oxymoronic.

And, of course, MoveOn.org and Greenwald would never complain when Katrina Van Den Heuval is treated as an objective political commentator. Nor, are they willing to admit what is so patently obvious to everyone in Washington: Dana Milbank is a liberal reporter. Nor could they fathom how annoying it is for conservatives to be pigeonholed as “conservative” commentators. They ask, say, Jeff Greenfield “what did you make of this or that?” while anchors and hosts will say to a conservative like Kate O’Beirne “And, for the conservative views, what did you think of that?” Greenfield’s version is “objective” while Kate’s reflects some sort of ghettoized vision of the world.

But where I thought the MoveOn thing was going was on the issue of pitting “political consultants” and activists against opinion journalists. I’ve vented about this before ( here and here for example), and it continues to drive me crazy. I won’t say something I don’t believe, in part because it would be dishonorable to do so and in part because I have a vested interest in maintaining my credibility.

Political consultants will say anything if that’s what their client or their party expects of them. This is a bipartisan point. Pitting GOP activists against New Republic writers is just as shabby as pitting Democratic Party “consultants” against conservative pundits. Some of my best friends have been producers for various famous political shows and I’ve been in and out of green rooms for more than a decade. I can’t tell you how common it is for a party apparatchik to go on TV and say “the sky is green” and then the second the cameras are off, they’ll say “of course the sky is blue, but there’s no way I could say that.” Stories like this are legion.

And what is so infuriating, as someone who has to argue with these people professionally, is that it is almost impossible to an intellectually honest discussion. When one side is saying “Bush is evil incarnate,” it’s very difficult to stick to the substance. You almost have to say, “I think that’s ridiculous” which all of a sudden makes the argument about whether or not Bush is evil incarnate — precisely the argument the spinners (and producers) want.

I could go on about this for hours. But, I must get on the road for the NYC NR party.