Last week I made a brief mention of ABC News' Web coverage of the recess appointment of Sam Fox to be ambassador to Belgium. The headline was anything but unbiased: "Bush Swift Boats Belgium, Congress." The subhed wasn't any better: "President Slips Swift Boat Ambassador Past Congress."

Rule No. 1 of headline writing: Don't use the same words in both the headline and subhed; even if you want to make sure that everyone gets the "Swift Boat" connection.

The story itself isn't any better.

While Congress is out of session, President Bush flexed his executive power muscle, appointing businessman Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium less than a week after his nomination was pulled when Senate Democrats hammered away at him for donating money to a conservative group that helped sink Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Kerry and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., led Senate Democrats' opposition to Fox, who in 2004 contributed $50,000 to the slanderous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which used a series of television ads to undermine Kerry's combat record.

If I recall correctly, only one ad addressed Kerry's combat record. Most of the rest took him to task for his slander of his fellow troops when he accused them before Congress of "cutting off heads" and "cutting off ears."

If the bias of using the term "slander" isn't obvious, then this should make it painfully obvious: not a single serious news article -- other than ABC's -- used the term.

Next we have what may or may not be some subtle racism.

Despite his grilling by Democrats, Fox, the national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition, refused to apologize for his donation.

This is the third paragraph. Other stories mentioned this fact, but it was buried deeper in the story.

• St. Louis Post Dispatch: Last paragraph.
• Associated Press: 14th Paragraph.
• New York Times: No mention.
• Washington Post: No mention.

Which brings us to this: Who is the author, Tahman Bradley?

According to ABC he is:

Tahman Bradley is an ABC News field producer based in the network's Washington bureau. He covers national politics, contributing content to the various platforms at ABC News. Prior to joining the ABC News Political Unit, Bradley was a Carnegie Fellow working on special projects with the ABC News Investigative Unit in New York. Bradley is a graduate of Howard University, where he studied journalism and political science.

What ABC doesn't mention is this: Bradley was a fellow at People for the American Way and lists among his campus affiliations the College Democrats.

Let me add a couple of additional things to ponder. Bradley graduated college in 2006. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he graduated in the Winter and not the Spring. That gives him just more than one year's experience -- and he's one of four people on the "Political Unit" of one of the three major networks.

All of this prompted me to recall ABC News' Mark Halperin, the guy in charge of ABC News' political coverage, and his interview with Hugh Hewitt shortly before the 2006 election.

The pertinent part to this post:

HH: Well, let me digress, because this always gets to this point. If you have reporters, are they allowed to report on business in which they have an investment?

MH: No.

HH: Of course not. No one is allowed to do that. I think almost every political reporter has an emotional investment, or an ideological investment in the way that politics turns out, and more often than not.

MH: They shouldn't.

HH: They shouldn't, but they do.

MH: That's what I'm trying to fix.

HH: But you're not fixing it by not telling us what you think. If everyone in your newsroom…

MH: I work very hard to take whatever beliefs I have, and bend over backwards to make sure that no one is treated unfairly by coverage that I impact.

From the looks of things, Halperin's name is at the top, he hasn't been bending over backwards in this case. The Bradley article is unchanged from how it read one week ago. There's no note of apology for the glaring bias.

Halperin followed up with this statement:

MH: That's why we need to have the newsroom not filled with people who are all atheists, or anti-2nd Amendment.

Well, I'm not sure what Bradley's religious beliefs are, or what his views on gun control are, but I think it's safe two say that he's not a conservative. Did Halperin really even try to ideologically diversify his staff when the opening that Bradley eventually filled came open?

And let's completely ignore the fact that Halperin is so insistent that no journalists covering politics answer questions about their political beliefs, yet he hires someone fresh off a stint with Ralph Neas' organization and who was involved in the College Democrats.

(For the record, I was not involved with the College Republicans when I went to school and was not even registered Republican until my senior year. In 1994, pre-Internet, it would've been very difficult for any employer to determine my political inclinations without going through back issues of the Mustang Daily.)

Halperin went on Hewitt's show basically begging conservatives to trust him and ABC News. He admitted that conservatives had good reason to be skeptical of the major media outlets, but they're doing better and please, please trust us.

HH: Okay. So how do we ever figure out when to start trusting you again?

MH: By judging us based…if we can every produce a product that isn't bias, you'll know.

Well, this case alone shows that ABC News can't be trusted. And the failure to address the article's glaring bias a week later shows that Halperin apparently doesn't care.

For the record, I never got a formal response from Halperin on the open letter I wrote him last year. The letter's conclusion:

I applaud your willingness to recognize that we are faced by a problem and by your desire to do something about it. Frankly, I’m just not sure how serious you are about doing the tough things and making the hard decisions that will return some respect and trust back to the old media.

I think the Bradley article is the only answer I'm going to get. And the answer appears to be something along the lines of: "Pound Sand."

*UPDATE* Hugh Hewitt informs me -- and I must confess when he mentioned it, it rang a bell -- that Halperin has stepped down within the last month as head of ABC's political unit. He's been replaced by his former deputy, David Chalian, who apparently doesn't care as much as his predecessor for projecting even the appearance of neutrality and fairness.