This morning I posted this in response to the Gwen Ifill conflict story:

Gwen Ifill is moderating the debate tomorrow night even though she has a pro Obama book coming out. Andrea Mitchell is reporting on the financial crisis, no doubt with some guidance from her former Fed chairman husband. And David Gregory’s wife just stepped down as a major poobah at Fannie Mae. But when a conservative judicial nominee is reported to have eaten at a questionable taco stand in the 1970s, the press worries somberly about whether such a conflict of interest makes it possible to be impartial.

A bunch of readers — across the entire spectrum of civility — objected. My point was not to say that a debate moderator is more important — or even remotely as important — as a judge. My point was that the press could use a little introspection on these sorts of things.

Since my first days as a media critic, I’ve seen scores of journalists like Ifill insist that they are 100% objective and fair because they take their profession seriously. Well, judges have much more rigid rules and codes — even criminally prosecutable laws, I believe — requiring them to be fair. Their professional codes of conduct as well as their training are vastly more developed and adhered to. But journalists will often say these learned legal professionals can’t possibly be fair because of some absurd, distant and wholly superficial conflict of interest or other sign of bias (Examples? I dunno, Clarence Thomas’ joke about a pubic hair or Alito’s tenuous relationship with some harmless club at Princeton). But when it comes to journalists, well: these iron-willed priests of the fourth estate are incorruptible, even though they’re married to liberal politicians, sometimes got their start as political aides to liberal politicians, work, live and socialize almost exclusively with liberals and, by their own account, are in all other ways liberal.

I really don’t mind too much strict conflict of interest rules for judges, but if liberal journalists believed 1/1,000th of what they say when it comes to conflict of interest rules for judges (or conservative politicians, journalists, et al) they would see that they themselves are not qualified to be fair and objective observers of the news.

Update: From a reader:

Ifill has a true conflict of interest rather than a mere bias. The nature of her book and its release date means that if Obama wins the election she stands to make significantly more money than if he loses. If she were a judge she’d have to recuse herself, no question.

Oh, I agree with that entirely. I think that just proves my point. Journalists have to meet a much lower standard than the one they often invoke for others. I’m not saying it should be otherwise, I’m just saying that journalists should acknowledge this fact every now and then. Instead, despite mountains upon mountains of evidence to the contrary, MSM journalists not only insist they’re not biased at all but that people who complain about bias are buffoons of some kind.