My earlier post on CNN’s X-ing of Cheney has been picked up by a number of websites and is driving a lot of readers here who are unfamiliar with my site. Some people are interpreting my position as a sign of my own bias. One reader e-mailed:

Puh-leeze....if Fox News had pulled this stunt by placing a “X” over Bill Clinton or Hillary or any Democrat for that matter, all hell would break loose. For you to give CNN a pass is showing your bias against Cheney.

The day I am accused of bias against Vice President Cheney is a day that I let out a robust belly laugh. But it is also a sign that people on the right can be too overzealous with their charges of media bias. Anyone who has read this site consistently knows the work I’ve done to document the media’s left-leaning slant. The key word there is document. Absent of any evidence, you can’t just assume that an apparent video glitch is the same thing as a doctored quote, an omitted set of facts, or an artfully crafted phrase. In those cases, a conscious act must be committed by the journalist in order to skew the reporting. We can’t tell whether the “X” mark is the result of a conscious act.

I am willing to be proven wrong on this, but it will take evidence to do so. In the meantime, I hope that conservatives don’t go too far down the road of conspiracy-mongering. Recently, that has been the exclusive domain of the left, much to their detriment. Such a mentality can be equally destructive to conservatives if they’re not careful.