In the run-up to the 2010 elections, the mainstream media continually sought to portray the Tea Party movement as a bunch of nutty racists, just one dog-whistle order from Rush Limbaugh away from mowing down progressives with automatic weapons purchased from Mexican drug cartels.

When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot by a conspiracy minded nutjob of no particular political persuasion, the “professional” media once again ran to the parapets to denounce Sarah Palin’s map “targeting” Democratic representatives for political defeat, everything Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have ever said and Fox News.

Over the past few weeks, there have been protests, vandalism and death threats against Republicans in Wisconsin, and the mainstream media has studiously ignored  acts by their political fellow travelers that would have prompted countless editorials, news stories, and panel discussions on MSNBC and CNN had it been the Tea Party doing it. For an impressive, but likely incomplete, list of violence and thuggery, check out this post by John Nolte over at Big Journalism.

Don’t believe me? You don’t have to take my word for it: Lefty Democrat Lee Stranahan has written about his Paul on the road to Damascus moment on liberal media bias over at the Huffington Post.

Ignoring the story of these threats is deeply, fundamentally wrong. It's bad, biased journalism that will lead to no possible good outcome and progressives should be leading the charge against it.

Just before writing this article, I did a Google search and it's stunning to find out that the right wing media really isn't exaggerating -- proven death threats against politicians are being ignored by the supposedly honest media. If you've never agreed with a single thing that Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly et al have said about anything, you can't in any good conscience say that they don't have a point here. Death threats are wrong and if a story like Wisconsin is national news for days, then so are death threats.

And the mainstream media wonders why viewership is down and circulation is in the crapper.