In light of last week's especially dishonest piece of journalism on Chuckaquiddick (the scandal surrounding two DSCC staffers' illegally acquiring a probable GOP senate candidate's credit report). I got to thinking about how Bill Keller's propaganda rag would have covered Tom DeLay's indictment in Texas if they leaned to the right as far as they lean to the left.

First, they probably wouldn't have gotten around to writing anything on it quite yet.

Second, they'd bury it deep within a section.

Third, the story would read something like this:

Democratic leaders are hopeful that legal troubles in the Republican Party will breathe new life into their efforts to take back control of the House in the 2006 election.

Democrats need only a 12-seat swing to recapture control of the lower chamber from the GOP, which has held the reins since the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994. Democrats are also hopeful that the difficulties may affect Senate races -- there the GOP holds only a 5-vote margin.

Democrats are seizing on a thinly-sourced indictment by a partisan prosecutor in Texas against the House majority leader.

"Democrats are after him because he's been such an effective leader for this great nation," said Joseph Blow, a spokesman for the Texas Republican Party. "The prosecutor's first indictment was for a crime that didn't even exist at the time the majority leader was said to have been committing it."

For their part, Democratic leaders claim that Republicans are evil. "This is part of a Republican culture of corruption," said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi.

Republicans dismissed Pelosi's charges and pointed out that there are more registered Democrats in the nation's prisons than Republicans.

The indictment alleges the Republicans conspired to "launder" corporate money through the national party to benefit Republicans in state races. A public records search reveals that the Texas Democratic Party made similar transactions with their national party, but no Democrat has been indicted on similar charges.

The partisan Texas prosecutor, Ronnie "hatchet-man" Earle, has been after the Republican minority leader for years -- ever since his successful orchestration of a redistricting plan that gave the Republican-dominated state five more GOP House members.

Earle embarrasingly attempted to convict Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in 1993, but the case was dismissed on the first day of court when the judge ordered the jury to return a verdict of "innocent."

This is probably more biased to the right than the Times piece on Chuckaquiddick was biased to the left -- but not by much. Though I did manage to write the entire thing without naming DeLay at all -- something the Times probably could've managed with their piece if those pesky GOP senators hadn't sent a letter to Schumer.

Oftentimes you can detect some subtle bias in just about any reporting if you look really closely, but that's usually just a product of groupthink in a newsroom culture. Last week's Times piece was unabashed propaganda and probably the worst, most one-sided article I've seen in a major national newspaper since last year's Swift Boats expose.