During the Bush administration, liberals criticized the media for mindlessly parroting the Bush administration's fraudulent case for war in Iraq. Now, conservatives complain about reporters carrying water for the Obama administration:

Kate Betts is so pro-Michelle she wouldn't allow a glimmer of negativity damage the beautiful, casual picture she was painting. Meredith Vieira mentioned her fashion “mistakes,” and like an administration publicist, Betts wouldn't even contemplate the possibility:

VIEIRA: Yet she's made some fashion mistakes, according to some people. The bare legs on Air Force One and then--showing her legs, actually--and then recently she wore a British designer at that dinner for the president of China. Big mistakes in your view?

Ms. BETTS: You know, I don't think those are mistakes. I think the British designer was something that she did because she wears what she loves and she really telegraphs this message of self-possession and confidence. And to me that's what defines American style.

That's Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham accusing a reporter of behaving “like an administration publicist” because she doesn't think it was a mistake to wear clothes designed by a Brit to dinner with the president of China.

And that, basically, is the difference between media criticism from the left and from the right: Liberals didn't like it when the media obediently repeated deeply false claims about war, and conservatives don't like it when a reporter refuses to go along with a deeply stupid criticism of Michelle Obama's clothes.