Things they never write about dead liberals

If tomorrow Eleanor Clift were run down by a bus while crossing K Street -- perish the thought! -- her obituary would not include this sentence:

Though known as a liberal, Clift developed relationships with folks on both sides of the aisle and had sources everywhere.

And yet Lynn Sweet, who proudly counts the departed Robert Novak as a colleague, feels compelled to write this about him:

Though known as a conservative, Novak developed relationships with folks on both sides of the aisle and had sources everywhere.

Why? Are conservative journalists so notoriously partisan in their friendships as to eschew all social interaction with liberals? Was this the habit of, inter alia, William F. Buckley Jr.? Indeed, no, as one of Buckley's best friends was the notoriously wrongheaded liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

So then, as we might more readily believe, is Sweet's telltale sentence yet another case of liberals projecting their own faults on the demonized Other? That is to say -- and I'll drop the just-asking-questions mode to say it directly -- liberal journalists notoriously ostracize any member of their profession who fails to embrace the appropriate ideology. In fact, this habit is not limited to liberal journalists merely, but rather is common among liberals everywhere, who treat conservatism as a sort of moral failing that makes the right-winger socially unacceptable.

For example, you should have seen the fear in the eyes of a certain young Democratic congressional staffer when, a couple of Fridays ago, I spotted her at the Union Pub and approached her cordially as if she were my dearest friend in the world.

Oh, I understand, sweetheart. You don't want your friends to start wondering if you've been accidentally disclosing facts to a conservative reporter. But a good reporter never burns his sources, so far be it from me to suggest that you had anything to do with this little nugget, or that you told me anything useful to my 3,000-word IG-Gate story in the September issue of The American Spectator.

So my dear Democratic friend who is not -- repeat, is not -- leaking sensitive inside information to me, please don't panic when, later this week, I drop by your office to hand you a newly-printed copy of the September issue and thank you for your non-cooperation.

Explain it however you want, darling, but if I get hit by a bus, don't tell anybody that I had "relationships with folks on both sides of the aisle."

"Plausible deniability." IYKWIMAITYD.