HUGH HEWITT HAS SOME COMMENTS FOR PETER BEINART on scandals and media double standards:

The New Republic’s Peter Beinart and I mixed it up today, when after dancing around the fact that he and the staff at TNR had been discussing the Kerry allegations he chastised me for bringing up the DrudgeReport’s allegations on air without any evidence for their veracity. Trap sprung. I asked Peter for the evidence supporting the allegations that Bush was a “deserter” or “AWOL”, allegations that he and the TNR staff have been rolling about in for days. The only “evidence” he could cite was General Turnipseed’s alleged charge.

Understand that Turnipseed has never alleged that Bush was AWOL or a deserter. Never. Four years ago he said he doesn’t recall seeing him. On Tuesday he stated that Bush could well have been on the base, but that he just didn’t see him.

In other words, there is no evidence whatsoever to support Terry McAuliffe’s slanderous charge that was repeated in Congress yesterday by a Democratic congressman and by countless pundits including the increasingly repugnant Begala, and widely read websites of the left like Joshua Marshall’s.

But while Beinart and his colleagues of the left have no problem covering the Bush story and shifting coverage from the lack of evidence for the charges leveled at Bush to their dissatisfaction with the completeness of the Bush denials, they are feigning shock that a report from Matt Drudge on alleged Kerry infidelity should be mentioned outside their newsrooms.

The timing of the new allegations is wonderful especially because it throws such a defining light on the bias of the Washington media –ever ready to carry the water of the Democrats and dismayed that they might be obliged to cover some nasty business about the front-runner from the left.

I am, as I’ve said before, underwhelmed by the Kerry scandal. But I’m even more underwhelmed by the National Guard flap. It’s quite obvious that there’s a double standard here, and Hugh is right to chastise them for it.

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UPDATE: Then there’s this comment from reader Don Williams:

Given their constant rush to put out breaking news, I was surprised that the TV networks haven’t let out a peep re Drudge’s report of a Kerry affair with an intern.

Then it occurred to me that if Kerry’s “electability” is questioned –if the Kerry bubble pops –then Howard Dean is the last man standing. Given how the TV networks torpedoed the Dean campaign with roughly 473 misleading broadcasts of his “Iowa Scream” (with the cheering crowd edited out) can anyone doubt what a Dean FCC would do to the networks?

Isn’t Edwards still standing?

ANOTHER UPDATE: TNR has responded to Hewitt on its campaign blog. “This isn’t an example of ideological bias. It’s actually the opposite. It’s the press trying to be scrupulously unbiased.”

Yet another reason why all media operations should have blogs.

Then there’s this cartoon, taking a somewhat different perspective.

MORE: Bo Cowgill comments on the TNR response.

STILL MORE: Here’s another response to the TNR post. (“So how can you argue that the AWOL story should be covered because it was being discussed by a major Democratic candidate, but NOT cover the Kerry adultery story even though it was being shopped around by the exact same person?”)