If this isn’t a prototypical example of liberal bias, I don’t know what is. Here’s the headline and the first part.

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.

When asked after the hearing if that “prominent family” was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, “You said it. I didn’t.”

It would appear that Bush is playing politics with the public’s health! ZOMG !!!!1111!!1!one!

Yet, when you read the rest of the article, you realize that despite the fact that the Times breathlessly reported that part as if it were a major affront to the nation, he wouldn’t by any means be the first. Despite the fact that well over half of the story contained complaints about Bush, we have this gem.

Dr. Carmona testified under oath at a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California. The topic was strengthening the office of the surgeon general. Dr. C. Everett Koop, surgeon general in the Reagan administration, and Dr. David Satcher, surgeon general during the Clinton administration and the first year of the administration of George W. Bush, also testified.

Each complained about political interference and the declining status of the office. Dr. Satcher said that the Clinton administration discouraged him from issuing a report showing that needle-exchange programs were effective in reducing disease. He released the report anyway.

Dr. Koop, said he had been discouraged by top officials in the Reagan administration from discussing the AIDS crisis. He did so anyway.

All three men urged major changes in the way the surgeon general is chosen and the way the office is financed.

Interesting to note, of course is the absence of Joycelyn Elders. One would have to wonder if she was meant to not give a speech on spanking the monkey and gave it anyway. But I digress.

The story gives a lot of ink to Bush and Carmona but not a whole lot to Koop or Satcher. Why is that?

Oh right… Because that doesn’t make George W. Bush look bad and if we talk about the history in any detail, we’d realize that it isn’t new or unique to W.

And we certainly can’t have that. Not in the New York Times, dammit!