Joe Klein is smoking hot on a current McCain strategy in this important Time post, oddly headlined "Angry Amateurs." It's really about Vicious Professionals--McCain's. You know the old advice to lawyers: When you don't have the facts, cite the law; when you don't have the law, cite the facts. The McCain campaign's corollary: When you don't have either, bash the press. Let's call this Schmidting, after McCain's Rove-apprentice chief strategist, Steve Schmidt.

During the years--years--when McCain was holding reporters enthralled, the right-wing crusade against the "liberal media" was muted (with respect to him), and for good reason: the sweet talk was mutual. (Recall McCain's affectionate-sardonic gag about the press: "my base.") Now, either because McCain's campaign is thrashing, or because some reporters have had enough and jumped off the Straight Talk Express, or because the pack got bored with the old reverence, or for whatever combination of reasons, the Rovian Steve Schmidt has decided to call up the press-bashing drums.

Klein begins:

The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is the McCain campaign's war against the press. This has been building for some time. Those of us who have criticized the candidate--and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past--have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year.

And here's how he leaves matters:

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

If ever there were a time when reporters ought to stare straight in the mirror and remind themselves that they do not practice their profession to be intimidated--that they have a noble mission and that when they cease to practice it they grease the skids for an awful war and for Swift-Boaters--this is that time.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press--which is owned by newspapers, TV and radio stations--hasn't incurred the McCain wrath. An AP dispatch today, under the byline Tom Raum, says: ''Many liberals are belittling the choice [of Sarah Palin], suggesting that as a mother of five children...she has neither the time nor the experience to become vice president."
Raum's dispatch quotes no such liberals, though it does quote two right-wingers cheering about Gov. Palin's multi-tasking in order to fabricate a shoddy argument about a right-left role reversal.

It sure looks as though the AP has been rolled under the stewardship of new Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier, who previously interviewed for a political adviser position with the McCain campaign. Under Fournier's administration, the AP has run headlines like: "Biden pick shows lack of confidence," "Sen. Hillary Clinton an Artful Dodger," "Obama walks arrogance line," and "Clinton's Politics of Pity."

Eric Boehlert of the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters has showed that Fournier made no pretense of fairness of balance on Republicans. His only gripe against any Republican during the primary season took Mitt Romney to task for beating John McCain in the Michigan primary ("a defeat for authenticity in politics").

Looks as though the AP doesn't need to be Schmidted--it got there first.