The American mainstream media is well known for taking things lightly on the President and his Republican administration. Although some notable outlets can always be counted on to paint things in a positive light for the Republican side, individual reporters on so-called "liberal" networks like CNN are oftentimes keen on doing the same.

The fact that CNN is still seen by many as liberal is enough to induce vomiting in a non-partisan observer, and the continued reputation of the Cable News Network as being actively pro-Democrat is enough to push actual Democrats to suicide.

Bob Woodward-style journalism of the Watergate era is dead and gone in today’s media atmosphere – heck, just look at the updated Bob Woodward of today. Reporters that are friendly, if not too obviously friendly, to authority – as long as they have a smile on their face and a peppy attitude – are the most successful reporters these days.

And CNN’s Ed Henry is certainly friendly to the current governing body. But there's friendly reporting, and then there's hero worship. Henry, at least in my mind, has become synonymous with sycophantism when it comes to reporting on President Bush.

When Bush needs the equivalent of a journalistic hug, Mr. Henry is there, with his supposedly-unbiased arms outstretched.

On May 31, I caught Mr. Henry reporting on News From CNN. I wasn’t paying close attention, but simply passed him off as a Bush supporter heaping praise on his president. Literally. I thought Mr. Henry was one of the paid Bush-bots, perhaps Terry Holt, and I actually wondered if CNN would include a Democratic guest to retort against what I figured was a Republican National Committee talking-head.

Maybe I should pay attention next time, because when I focused on the television, I realized that I was listening to a CNN reporter – not a commentator, not a pundit or paid propagandist, but a journalist – rather than a Terry Holt or Ed Gillespie type.

“I think the best thing the president has going in his favor is himself. He is his best secret political weapon,” began Henry, responding to a question about whether Bush can help Republicans maintain or win House and Senate seats in 2006.

He continued, “This is a president… who does not give up. He doesn't watch the polls. He doesn't care what the commentators are saying. He's going to stick with it. And on Social Security, he is still grinding it out, day in, day out, even though a lot of people are saying he's not going to get it. He believes he will.”

Every politician doesn’t watch polls, if you believe what their boosters say. Does Bush watch polls? Surely he, personally, is too busy riding his bike or practicing not fumbling during speeches – but his minders watch polls, and closely. A sure sign that a reporter is carrying water for a politician is if they believe – and then actually report – that the politician “doesn’t watch polls”, which is precisely what their advisors tell reporters (while not expecting them to actually believe it).

Which begs the question: if Bush’s spokespeople told Ed Henry that Bush donated his kidneys and saved a drowning baby last year, would Ed Henry report it as fact?

(The poll stuff is even odder if you look at what Henry said later that day on Inside Politics: “Polls show the majority of the public still is not sold on private accounts. Republicans on the Hill [are] watching those polls very closely.” Henry expects us to believe that Republicans “on the Hill” are focused on polls, while the blemish-free Bush isn’t?)

According to Henry, the best thing Bush has going for him is “himself.” Bush “does not give up.” Bush is “going to stick with it,” and of course, he’ll save social security. He’s “grinding it out, day in, day out,” and “he believes he will” succeed. Is Bush God? Or just Gandhi? It’s hard to tell from this report, but it’s certainly one of the two.

On Inside Politics that same day, Henry reported that Bush gets his political optimism “from himself.”

“He's heard time and time again in the first term of his presidency he could not get things done. He could not get a large tax cut, for example. As soon as he came to office, [he’s heard] that he didn't have enough political capital to do it. And he repeatedly has looked at naysayers and said, ‘I can get it done’,” Henry reported. Heroic!

More Henry: “[Bush] compared getting Social Security reform to getting water to cut through a rock. And he said, ‘I'm just going to work at it and work at it’. And that's what he's doing. He's getting that optimism, I think, from himself. He's done this before, he's proven the naysayers wrong, and he thinks he's going to do it again.”

Maybe Ed Henry was just feeling particularly pro-Republican on this particular day. Or maybe not. On June 3, 2004, Henry reported that, in a speech, George Soros “equated the Iraqi prisoner abuse to the 9/11 attacks” – which wasn’t the case. According to media watchdog group Media Matters for America, Henry was repeating a “right-wing talking point”, as “attacking Soros as a means of discrediting Kerry [had] become a key strategy” of the Bush re-election campaign.

Then there was Henry's November 25, 2004, segment in which he stated not once but three times that Democrats were trying to score political points. They “want to score some political points right now”, he said; “Democrats are trying to score points here”; then scoring the hat trick with, “Democrats also used this pro forma session today to try to also score political points,” before which Henry spoke about Democrat “hypocrisy”. Surely I’m cherry picking, but I can assure you that you won’t find the same type of fawning coverage of Democratic leaders as Henry reserves for Bush – and you certainly won’t hear him talking about Republican hypocrisy or attempts to score “political points.”

Along with his youthful, bubbly presence, Henry brings a whole lot of enthusiasm for Bush – the guy who doesn’t watch polls, continually proves his naysayers wrong, and brims with optimism. In Ed Henry’s world, at least. His biases are understandable – every reporter has his own worldview, and perhaps a Fox News gig or White House spokesperson job is in Henry’s sights. The question is, why does CNN allow it? Don’t they have journalistic standards? Doesn’t this “liberal” network notice when their “liberal” reporters go so visibly astray?

I don’t mean to pick on Mr. Henry, for he’s only a symptom of a much larger illness wreaking havoc upon America’s corporate media. The once-respectable CNN knows where its bread is buttered, and right now, that butter is in the Bush White House fridge.