This afternoon, I wrote a long, rather huffy post on liberal media bias. It was prompted by 1) those reporters who were caught on tape trashing Sarah Palin, and 2) the David Weigel affair. I have deep-sixed the post, however — spiked it. I can huff about media bias again, as I have in the past. (And I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll — not budge the house an inch.)

Let me instead say this: I think many of my conservative colleagues are far too gingerly when it comes to liberal media bias. Far too timid, delicate, and forgiving. For a long time, complaining about media bias has been seen as uncouth. It’s something we all need to learn to live with, like death, taxes, and mosquitoes. Don’t be uncool by bitching about it, man.

I wish I could find an Abe Rosenthal column, written many years ago. It was about the reluctance of Jews to call anti-Semitism anti-Semitism, when anti-Semitism presented itself. They were eternally worried about “crying anti-Semitism” — so they stayed mute, when they should have been crying.

So unusual was this column, it was thrilling.

It’s hard to know just when to pull the trigger — entirely a matter of judgment. Some people are too quick on the anti-Semitism trigger (or the racism trigger), and some people are too slow. It takes real judgment — real knowing — to pull it at exactly the right moment.

Every now and then, the curtain is pulled back on the mainstream media — and we see how these guys talk and act when they’re at their most authentic. This is important. Liberal media bias is maybe something we all have to live with, but that doesn’t mean it’s something to ignore, be blasé about, or excuse.

I’m grateful to both Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters for something: They admitted, yes, the media are liberal, and a good thing, too. It has to be that way, they said. For — and this is Walters talking — journalism involves the “human condition,” and liberals care about the human condition. Unlike conservatives, who of course couldn’t give a rat’s a** about the human condition.

Anyway . . . Conservatives should be frank and bold when it comes to the media, as to everything else. And if others say you’re tiresome or whiny or uncool . . . well, so be it. Did you sign up for conservatism to be cool?

One more thing, before I go: I have a friend who’s an old-school political reporter, practically a dinosaur. He stresses the principle, “No cheering in the pressbox” — a statement taken from sports journalism, obviously. No cheering in the pressbox? The guys I have in mind — mainstream-media reporters all — don’t so much cheer as turn cartwheels while blowing on vuvuzelas. And they are cartwheeling and blowing for the Democratic party.