Not a party to scandal?

Eliot Spitzer is a Democrat.

There. At least somebody’s said it right up front.

If you’re watching the news accounts of the soon-to-be-ex-New York governor’s call-girl scandal and resignation this week, you’d be listening in vain to find out what party he belongs to. NBC’s Today Show never mentioned Spitzer’s party during 11 segments about him on its Tuesday broadcast, according to Media Research Center, which tracks media bias (something we all know does not exist, don’t we?). Neither ABC’s nor NBC’s evening newscasts Tuesday identified him as a Democrat, but put the party tag on Republicans responding to the scandal.

Likewise, news Web sites’ stories either buried his affliliation deep in the story, or not at all. The New York Times’ story online Wednesday, for example, identified Spitzer as a Democrat in the 17th paragraph. The Associated Press story that appeared on the Enquirer’s Web site buried it in the 18th paragraph. The Washington Post story simply alluded to his “fellow Democrats” in the 12th paragraph; USA Today did the same in the 22nd paragraph. The Chicago Tribune didn’t mention his party at all, but noted in the eighth paragraph that a Republican leader had said he’d call for Spitzer’s impeachment. CNN didn’t identify his party at all.

Contrast that with recent stories about U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, whose lawyers are trying to invalidate his guilty plea for soliciting sex in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport men’s room last year. The Associated Press noted Craig’s political party in the first paragraph of its story, as did the Washington Post. CNN had it in the second paragraph, as did the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

And when the news of Craig’s predicament first broke last summer, his party was almost invariably noted in the first or second paragraph. The same with Sen. David Vitter in last summer’s reports that his phone number was on the “D.C. Madam’s” list.

By the way, both senators are Republican, in case you've been on a desert island the past year.

You could select different news outlets and different incidents, but I suspect the outcome would be pretty much the same. In a negative story about a politician, a Republican’s party affiliation gets far greater prominence than a Democrat’s. In other words, a news judgment is made that party affiliation is relevant when a Republican is involved in a scandal. Why? I’ve heard the argument that it’s a matter of hypocrisy, but that rationale implies an assumption about a political party that a journalist has no business making.

Besides, it’s now apparent there has been no bigger hypocrite in American politics than the arrogant, self-righteous, faux-moralistic Spitzer. Gosh, you’d think he was a Republican.