How the media covers news when a Democrat is president

Remember the TIPS program proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002, shortly after 9/11? Here’s a reminder:

Attorney General John Ashcroft tried to assure dubious Senate Democrats yesterday that a new citizens watchdog program isn’t a Big Brother snooping operation.The attorney general said TIPS is aimed at reporting suspicious activity in public areas and isn’t targeted at people’s homes – a central complaint of libertarians who say the plan encourages neighbors to spy on one another.

And here’s how they are covering a new Obama administration program that will do essentially the same thing that TIP proposed:

A new government program aims to train thousands of parking industry employees nationwide to watch for and report anything suspicious — abandoned cars, for example, or people hanging around garages, taking photographs or asking unusual questions.

Note the straight reporting, the lack of snark, the lack of bias and calamitous predictions. This is how the TIP program should have been reported. The difference was that George W. Bush was president.