In Impromptus today, I play a little with a question: Should one party, and only one party, impose a new regime of health care on the country — even if that party has the votes, however narrowly? This would be a tremendously big change. Something like a consensus may be appropriate.

And a letter I received yesterday hit a couple of buttons. Here in the Corner (and elsewhere), I have been talking about the sometimes-shocking bias of the Associated Press — a wire service, after all, which should be fairly factual and neutral. And others in the Corner have been talking about the “MSM” view of the Republican role in health care: a view that says, “They’re not really interested in improving things, but rather in blocking Obama, or tripping him up.”

Well, listen to this reader:

Yet another example of the AP’s sad decline. From today’s story on the health-care bill: “In the Senate, Baucus, Grassley and two other senators from each party have been negotiating for weeks in hopes of agreeing on compromise legislation. Both men face considerable pressure from their respective parties — Baucus not to stray too far from Democratic objectives, Grassley not to hand the president a political victory.”
Well, of course. When Democrats exert pressure, it’s in pursuit of objectives. But when Republicans exert pressure, it’s all political and personal, aimed at making the president look bad. They couldn’t possibly actually believe that a government takeover of health care is disastrous. No, of course not.
Pardon my language, but whatta loada crap.

Well, he did say “pardon.”

Are we being a little sensitive here — overly sensitive about bias? Maybe. But such sensitivity, at least in my view, is plainly justifiable.