THE FIRST LADY AND THE CONSERVATIVE MEDIA

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has pretty much stayed out of the limelight since the fiasco over national health planning that she orchestrated early in her husband's first term.

In a recent interview on C-SPAN, which was widely reported elsewhere, Mrs. Clinton indicated a bizarre concept regarding media bias.

In fact, she said, she doesn't think the media is really biased. But, she said, she thinks right-wing news outlets give an unbalanced tilt to the news.

"I mean, you've got a conservative and/or right-wing press presence with really nothing on the other end of the political spectrum," she said in the interview.

Millions of conservative Americans will find Mrs. Clinton's views on the media to be out of touch with reality. By and large, most conservatives agree that major media outlets, including most major metropolitan newspapers and much of the national broadcast media, have a decidedly liberal bias.

"It's difficult to get a well-argued presentation of issues that is really reflective of different points of view in the media today," Mrs. Clinton said. Many conservative would agree -- that their views are seldom touted by the liberal mainstream press.

Perhaps Mrs. Clinton is flinching from the inescapable rehashing of allegations of wrongdoing by the Clinton administration. It seems she believes such questions of a card-carrying liberal president is the result of a conservative-controlled media.