Courtesy of the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus:

Imagine the outcry if the Bush administration had pulled a similar hissy fit with MSNBC. “Opinion journalism masquerading as news,” White House communications director Anita Dunn declared of Fox. Certainly Fox tends to report its news with a conservative slant -- but has anyone at the White House clicked over to MSNBC recently? Or is the only problem opinion journalism that doesn't match its opinion?

Has Marcus “clicked over” to MSNBC lately? Or is she just mindlessly parroting the right-wing talking point that MSNBC and Fox are equivalent?

If she Marcus did watch MSNBC, she'd see former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough hosting three agenda-setting hours each morning. She'd see Mika Brzezinski, JoeSco's ostensibly “liberal” sidekick, spouting off about how conservative Sarah Palin fans are the “real Americans.”

She'd see former Nixon and Reagan aide and three-time Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan -- the nation's most famous bigot.

She'd see Chris Matthews, whose has for years displayed open contempt for liberals, overt misogyny, and an archaic belief that minorities are not “regular” people.

She'd Michelle Bernard take a moment away from sending lie-filled anti-health care reform attack-emails to host an MSNBC special dealing with, among other things, health care.

She'd see a steady stream of conservative misinformation all day from Andrea Mitchell and Norah O'Donnell and others.

And then maybe she would remember that MSNBC is the channel that brought us Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, and Don Imus. The channel that fired Phil Donahue despite strong ratings simply because Donahue opposed the Iraq war. The channel that specializes more than any other in apologies for employees' offensive on-air statements.

Any journalist who says MSNBC is in any way the liberal equivalent to Fox News lacks either judgment or honesty -- and, either way, should not be taken seriously -- about anything.