Howard Kurtz on CNN, yesterday:

Friday night, a new scandal story emerged involving Senator Max Baucus, leading -- one of the leading Democrats in the health care debate. It turns out that he recommended to the U.S. attorney, the top federal prosecutor in his home state of Montana, his girlfriend, a woman who had been on his Senate payroll and suddenly was being -- she did not get the job, but she was on this list.

...

I just think that news organizations that have played this down have left themselves open to charges after the John Ensign story and after the Mark Sanford story that they're a little less enthusiastic about Democratic scandal.

This is crazy-talk, pure and simple.

Remember: During the 1996 presidential campaign, Howard Kurtz's own newspaper spiked a story about Bob Dole having an affair, after having covered allegations that Bill Clinton had affairs. Was that an example of the media being “a little less enthusiastic” about Democratic affairs? How about when the Post assigned half its newsroom to cover the Lewinsky story?

Or when MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski (who, according to Kurtz, is a liberal host on a liberal cable channel) allowed Rudy Giuliani to invoke Bill Clinton's infidelity earlier this year, without calling Giuliani on his own high-profile affairs? When Howard Kurtz was asked about that, he didn't suggest the media is “a little less enthusiastic about Republican scandal.” But, less than 48 hours after the Baucus story broke, he's ready to claim it demonstrates that the media is less enthusiastic about Democratic scandals. Nonsense.

PS: Maybe Kurtz has heard of Whitewater?