Kelly's own slant begins with his description of Lichter's organization as "independent" -- a term that falsely suggests absence of ideological bias. Had the columnist bothered with minimal research concerning Lichter and the Center, he might have discovered that they are and always have been terribly dependent on right-wing foundations. According to MediaTransparency.org -- which tracks nonprofit funding from IRS 990 forms -- the Center has received $2.3 million from the Scaife, Olin, Bradley and Smith Richardson foundations, the big four of the far right. That figure includes $275,000 in 2001 and $200,000 in 2000 alone.

So when Lichter tells Kelly that journalists can't help reflecting bias in their work, he might as well be talking about himself. There is nothing "scientific" about his research into bias, since all of his organization's judgments about favorable or unfavorable coverage on newscasts are inevitably subjective. At an even more basic level of dishonesty, it's ridiculous to assume that newspapers or newscasts reflect the supposed Democratic bias of reporters, the lowest-ranking figures in the media. Why wouldn't they instead reflect the bias of editors, publishers, directors and management, all of which tend to be Republican and conservative? Editor & Publisher polled the nation's newspaper executives just before the 2000 election, and found an overwhelming preference for George W. Bush.

We also know that Jack Welch, former chief of NBC (and GE) is an ardent Republican. So was Larry Tisch when he owned CBS. So are Richard Parsons and Steve Case of CNN (and Time Warner AOL). Michael Eisner (Disney ABC) gave to Bill Bradley and Al Gore, but he gave more to Bush and McCain -- and he supported Rick Lazio for the Senate against Hillary Clinton. Rupert Murdoch and John Malone are big Republican supporters of the Cato Institute. So why isn't anybody complaining about the "conservative bias" of media executives?

Snow's job and the dock lockout
As several readers have pointed out, the confluence of CSX chief John Snow's Treasury appointment and his company's deal with the Bush-connected Carlyle Group is still more intriguing when another factor is considered: the president's decision to invoke his Taft-Hartley authority to stop the West Coast dock lockout (and not a strike, as I said earlier), just when that labor dispute was threatening to scuttle the CSX-Carlyle deal. Did the president misuse his power to help a business that pays his father and his advisor James Baker III, along with a raft of other Bush cronies? Will anyone in the Senate dare to ask the obvious questions about this strange coincidence when Snow is confirmed? Maybe the AFL-CIO, which has been complaining about Snow's stewardship of CSX, will prod its friends on the Hill.

Lotts of laughs
Daily Howler proprietor Bob Somerby incomparably predicts that the Republican leader will shortly announce that he "believes Tawana Brawley." The guy should be doing stand-up.
[3:15 p.m. PST, Dec. 18, 2002]

Snow's job
Something as spectacular as the Trent Lott implosion always obscures other fascinating news, such as a curious coincidence that attended the appointment of CSX chief executive John Snow as the new treasury secretary. While he pondered a new role in the Bush administration, his company has been negotiating a major deal with the Carlyle Group, corporate home of James Baker III and George Herbert Walker Bush. According to CBS MarketWatch, those negotiations were consummated late yesterday, with the sale of a majority stake in CSX's domestic container shipping unit -- CSX Lines -- to Carlyle for about $240 million in cash and $60 million in securities.

The deal reportedly was held up for a while in late October by the West Coast dockworkers' strike, which caused the Carlyle suits deep concern over the CSX unit's future revenues. But with the strike concluded, the deal was done.

As Daniel Gross explained in Slate last week, Snow is a former government bureaucrat turned "access capitalist," a not-very-successful CEO with a big appetite for perks and a lavish hand with political contributions. He wasn't a great choice for Treasury, but his profile is typical of this administration.

The most striking aspect of his appointment, now that we know about his firm's deal with Carlyle, is that he convinced the CSX board last year to award him a new contract that includes millions of dollars in severance benefits -- if he leaves the company to "fulfill an appointment to public office." I always thought that those fat CEO contracts were meant to keep talented executives.

So here are a few questions for his confirmation: When did he start to discuss a government position with the Bush White House? When did his deal negotiations with Carlyle begin? Why did he ask for special severance benefits if he accepted a government appointment? And why did CSX essentially pay him to leave? Exactly how does that benefit the company's stockholders?
[8:31 a.m. PST, Dec. 18, 2002]

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