Wonder why, in a survey reported by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, only 28 percent said they "believed all or most" of what they see on CNN?

CNN's Campbell Brown took three minutes of prime evening news time the other night to berate Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell for remarks, unwittingly made next to a live microphone, that in Brown's view were sexist.

Speaking, in what he thought was a private conversation, Rendell called the selection of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to head the Department of Homeland Security perfect "Because for that job, you have to have no life.

Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote 19, 20 hours a day to it."

Oh my lord. Brown ticked down her list of outrages. Would Rendell have said this if she were a man? How many women don't get hired because they have families? Do single woman get disproportionately stuck with the more "burdensome shifts"? etc., etc.

Unless you're looking for something, it's pretty hard to see anything derogatory or malicious in Rendell's remarks and, as his press secretary noted, he could have just as easily been talking about a man.

If Brown was actually interested in facts, she could have reported that Napolitano described herself, in a story in the Arizona Republic a couple years ago, as "just a straight, single, workaholic."

Ms Brown's journalism, of course, is really an agenda looking for a news hook. She concluded her three minute lecture, putting fellow liberal Rendell on notice that "Your comments perpetuate stereotypes."

Now if we think back to the fall of 1991, we, and Campbell Brown, might recall some real character assassination and exploitation of stereotypes, in which Janet Napolitano played a lead role. That was when she was Anita Hill's attorney in the campaign to slander Clarence Thomas with sexual harassment allegations and derail his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I recall that fall 17 years ago well, as I worked, as a young conservative activist, to bring black pastors from around the country to Washington in a show of support for the besieged nominee Thomas.

The campaign was defined by sleaze, and Janet Napolitano was certainly one of the quarterbacks. Continued...