For whatever reason, I found myself staring at this page from "FAIR" (a left-leaning media bias watch org).

They like to make the case that the media is grossly right-wing biased:

CNN seemed especially eager to feature immediate responses to Democratic speeches from not only Republican analysts, but from Bush-Cheney spokespeople. Following John Edwards' speech, CNN's Wolf Blitzer turned to Bush strategist Ralph Reed (7/28/04), who in rapid succession laid out a wholly deceptive case against Kerry: "He didn't talk about the fact that John Kerry has consistently over 19 years voted for higher taxes, deep cuts in intelligence and voted to cut or kill every major weapons system that's winning the war against terrorism." All of Reed's contentions are familiar, and have been thoroughly debunked (Extra!, 8/04; FAIR Media Advisory, 5/20/04)

So you'd think that these claims are, well "thorougly debunked" at the given link, right? Click it, and you'll find these claims aren't debunked at all. Instead, we get this:

Recent media coverage of Democratic presidential contender John Kerry has often focused on alleged gaffes or misstatements, ranging from convoluted explanations of his Senate voting record... [yet] journalists have shown a reluctance to highlight much more significant falsehoods or "gaffes" by Kerry's main rival, George W. Bush.

The rest of the article doesn't "debunk" these "deceptive" claims about Kerry's voting record at all -- it just devolves into complaints that George Bush isn't being attacked how, and as often, as the author would like, accusing Bush at every turn.

But you can't disprove Reed's statements about Kerry's voting record by saying you don't like George Bush, or even by calling Bush a liar. Saying you've "thoroughly debunked" Reed's contention, and then citing a page which does no such thing is... well... deceptive.

Of course, the content of the second page is equally deceptive, and lies even while accusing George Bush of being a liar.

For example, FAIR falsely claims Kerry released his medical records:

After Kerry pledged on NBC's Meet the Press to release medical records from his service in Vietnam, ABC World News Tonight (4/21/04) reported that Kerry's service "has become the subject of controversy" because some of his critics were raising doubts about his first Purple Heart. When the medical records did little to bolster their case...

But Kerry didn't release his records, he asked his own personal physician to summarize select records from his military service and assure us he was still in good health. In other words, a hand-picked person wrote a letter to us about them. He didn't release them, a'la Cheney.

So FAIR is, frankly, lying here.

And here's another one:

ABC's report included a soundbite from Republican National Committee Chair Ed Gillespie: "When President Bush committed to release all his military records on the same program, he kept his word. John Kerry should do the same." The fact that Bush took five days after his Meet the Press appearance to get his full records out while Kerry took three did not deter media outlets from doing stories on this nonexistent issue.

But Kerry hasn't signed the 180 form and Bush did. Kerry didn't release his "full" records in three days -- he still hasn't released them at all. We have about six forms out of more than one hundred pages.

Once again, what "FAIR" writes here is a bald-faced lie.

Even the "Kerry is being unduly harrassed" narrative rings hollow: The author admits the press asked Bush for his service records, but it's apparently only a "nonexistent issue" when the same questions are put to Kerry.

I'm not cherry-picking here, these are nearly random examples pulled off their pages as I saw them. Almost each thing I read is disprovable by the simplest means. I suspect the entire site is written just as dishonestly.

You know, I expect there are liberals who read this every day to get their "feed". I don't know whether they themselves are being deceived, or whether they know what they are reading is false at some level.

Regardless, material like this goes a long way towards explaining why liberals and non-liberals have such divergent views.