Quite an admission by Time's Mark Halperin (UPDATED)

Former ABC News Political Director and current Time Magazine and MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin makes quite an admission in his "Between the Lines" column for Time.  Analyzing the various misfortunes that have befallen President Obama's reelection hopes of late, Halperin laments the "negative, mocking" influence of the Drudge Report and comments,

The latest sign of Drudge's potency: Ed Klein, the author of the virulently anti-Obama book The Amateur, was barred from major TV appearances and mostly ignored by the mainstream media, but the book's prominence on Drudge's website propelled it to the No. 1 slot on the New York Times nonfiction list.

Remember all of those "virulently anti-Bush" best-selling authors who were "barred from major TV appearances and mostly ignored by the mainstream media"?  Paul Begala, Molly Ivins, Richard Clarke, coldly spurned to a one.  And oh how the "virulently anti-Bush" fauxumentary filmmaker Michael Moore was shunned!  Even Halperin himself, as co-author of the virulently anti-Palin book Game Change felt the sting of mainstream media rejection. Very tragic, all of it.  Okay... opposite!

Just this morning some of the brightest people I know tied themselves in rhetorical knots arguing that media bias against Republicans is a paranoid figment of conservatives' collectively fevered imaginations.  They'll have a non-response to Halperin's refreshing acknowledgement.  The mind reels.

UPDATE  (June 8): This new self-awareness among major mainstream media figures is apparently something of an epidemic.  Here's CBS News Chairman and CEO Les Moonves, commenting at an Obama fundraiser (let that sink in for a second) [credit: Los Angeles Times, via Breitbart]

CBS chief Les Moonves and his wife, Julie Chen, waited patiently for their wristbands. Obama, Moonves said, "has shown great leadership" on the issue of gay marriage.

Though he heads a news division, Moonves said, "ultimately journalism has changed … partisanship is very much a part of journalism now."

Media bias is hardly a new characteristic of "journalism."  There is something nice - even refreshing - though about the fact that some of the people in charge are finally willing to acknowledge it.