You're right, Doug, the bias is always more noticeable when it's against your side and in favor of the other. It's not that I think the press is necessarily hard on liberals or democrats. Rather, the rap that the press is "liberal" is a bum one.
The media want to make money and are primarily owned by large corporations. Thus, they are not likely to have a populist bias, much less an anti-consumerist bias. I was just pointing out that the media were not easy on Gore. Just as they're not pro-environmentalism, pro-small-business, etc.
They do sometimes make fun of Bush's mangling of the English language, but in the case of Gore, they misquoted him and widely perpetuated the misquote and misrepresentation.
I have seen/heard the media do this often, in relation to many people and stories--i.e., misquote, distort, etc., when their goal seems only to be brevity or titillation, and accuracy be damned.
Genie