Even the TV Columnist Hates Bush

Our newspaper uses as its daily television column a round-up provided by United Features Syndicate. For the last few years, it has been written by Kevin McDonough. [The "latest" columns on this site are a few days out of date, of course.] He writes a witty style, but doing a daily TV column must grind you down after a year or more. In the last year, I've really noticed a more politically partisan tone in his writing -- yes, in the television column.

I wish I had saved some examples from before the election. His column then had a tendency to veer off into gratuitous critiques of the international political underpinnings of administration policy in Iraq, which had nothing to do, as far as I could tell, with what was on UPN that night.

I happened to proofread tomorrow's TV page. Here's a paragraph from the TV column:

Rolanda Watts hosts "Lie Detector" (9 p.m., Pax), a new reality show that puts long-forgotten and semi-notorious newsmakers to the test. Tonight's guests include Paula Jones, whose accusations against President Bill Clinton began a well-financed legal brushfire that eventually resulted in impeachment. Why settle for news from the mid-1990s? While we're on the subject of impeachable offenses, perhaps Ms. Watts should use her polygraph to get to the bottom of the Valerie Plame scandal. Paging Robert Novak.

The column for Wednesday, meanwhile, leads off with an extended praise-fest for the CBS documentary about the CBS anchor Dan Rather. Without pausing to wonder whether the man's own employers are best qualified to produce a documentary about him, McDonough seems to find it moving, and powerful, as no doubt it will be.

But he betrays a severe short-sightedness in taking a swipe at Rather's critics.

In this valedictory summary Rather also reflects when he may have gone over the line. And he apologizes for mistakes made last September when his "60 Minutes" team appeared to be hoodwinked by bogus documents about President Bush's reserve duty.

But Rather makes no apologies to critics who have tried to make him a poster boy for an elite, liberal media. The show's emphasis on Rather's service on dangerous assignments underscores his defiant attitude. Without saying a word, it reminds us that we have not seen Rather's critics in similar dangerous situations. Where, after all, is the footage of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh in a flak jacket reporting in a combat zone under enemy fire?

Never mind that O'Reilly was a defender of Rather, not a critic. McDonough is still living in the world where the big media are the only. If Rather took a fall, it must have been his on-screen rivals who did it.

In fact, it was bloggers, not media rivals, who did the digging on the forged memos story, and who kept the heat on Rather. And some of them not only wore flak jackets while under fire in a combat zone, they shot back.

Does McDonough know about blogs? It seems he's heard the word. Earlier in the piece, he talks about the evolution of news coverage in the years since Rather took over from Walter Cronkite.

Cronkite was long considered the top anchor at a time when there were only three networks. Rather replaced him just as cable was beginning to erode the network's monopoly and legitimacy, and he would hold his position during an information revolution that would bring us hundreds of TV channels and a blizzard of Web sites and so-called blogs.

So-called TV reporters should check their bylines from time to time and remember what it is they are paid to do.