Newsbusters has practically trademarked this whine over the years: Newsrooms are conservative-free work zones and Republicans are actively excluded. I've never bought that claim because I've never once seen or heard a legitimate tale of a journalist who was fired or couldn't get hired simply because they weren't liberal. (Fact: Editors don't care!)

And I've also suggested that if surveys show that newsrooms lean a little left that's because liberals like being journalists and conservatives like to make a decent living. And that of course, if conservatives coming out of college want to earn a dreadful income with an entry level job in a dying news industry, they're welcomed to do so. It's just that not many seem interested in those job prospects, which means there aren't many conservatives to hire, which then allows Brent Bozell to manufacture the claim that conservatives get excluded.

But let's take a look at Politico reporter Josh Kraushaar, who caught my attention this week because he had a byline on a particularly awful piece about (surprise!) the GOP's mighty resurgence. This is the same Beltway chestnut that's been written over over for the last several years. (Glenn Greenwald walks us through the greatest hits.)

The Politico piece was just Republican spin, pure and simple because (all together now) Politico is really just a GOP bulletin board. But what's interesting is that based on his previous blogging, Josh Kraushaar clearly has a partisan GOP streak. He was a Iraq War cheerleader, quite critical of peace activists, and lambasted liberal professors. He's a big fan of Power Line, InstaPundit, and Little Green Footballs. And during a brief foray into movie reviewing, he once wrote, “Community, family values, religion, strong work ethic, love of America: what more could a red meat conservative ask for in a movie?”

But now he's a news reporter for Politico and this week wrote an article that was nearly indistinguishable from an RNC press release. (Headline: “Backlash: Democratic dangers mount.”) Coincidence? Perhaps. But unlike conservative media critics, I'm not in the habit of reading minds or assigning blanket motivations so I'm not going to cast aspirations. What I do think is telling though, is how Kraushaar seems to obliterate the right-wing whine about how conservatives are locked out of newsrooms for purely political reasons. In truth, and based on his previous blogging, Kraushaar couldn't be more far-right if he tried, yet he's been hired as a reporter at an influential political publication.

Which is weird, because I thought conservatives couldn't find jobs in the liberal media.