Oh, snap.

Somebody call the waaaaaambulance for the GOP:

The National Republican Congressional Committee sent a fundraising pitch this week over the name of Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) who chairs the committee.

…At least one passage in the email struck me as particularly noteworthy. "I realized you need to know about some of our all-star Republican candidates running for Congress. The liberal media will not help our candidates, so we are taking matters into our own hands," said the passage.

Whoever wrote the memo is absolutely right. We in the media (I'm not going to deal with the whole "liberal media" business right now) do not see it as our role to help political candidates. Isn't that what partisan political parties are for? That's the job of paid political operatives and party volunteers. I thought everyone knew this, but apparently not.

We're journalists, not part of the political party apparatus.

From that bastion of liberalism, the Chicago Tribune. It would be nice if more journalists shared Frank James’ opinion, but even nicer if the GOP could get it through their thick bloody skulls that the media is not—and was never meant to be—their dutiful manservant.

The "liberal media bias" claptrap has its roots in the regrettably waysided history of reporting facts, and because the American conservative movement can't win with facts, but only by subverting them, they began their assault on that tradition by claiming a liberal bias. The media was never one-sided; they were interested only in presenting the truth, and that always favors progressives. It's much harder to malign the LGBT community if the discussion is dictated by truths like straight marriage isn't remotely affected by the legalization of same-sex marriage, and like gay parents are good parents. It's much harder to undermine reproductive rights if the discussion is dictated by truths like most women don't use abortion as birth control, and like late-term abortions are done to protect the health of the mother. Ad infinitum.

Only by insisting that "both sides" are given equal time are conservatives guaranteed their time in the media spotlight, because when the media sticks to the facts, there's no room for conservative arguments on a whole host of issues. And because the media has capitulated, the GOP will fight and claw for more and more and more. "The liberal media will not help our candidates." Yeah well, they're not supposed to.