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Mar 3 2008 9:54AM EST

Klein, Alter and Lowry on Anti-Hillary Bias

She might not win the presidency, but Hillary Clinton has succeeded at one thing: getting us all to think about whether the press prefers Barack Obama over her.

Last night, three of the most prominent political commentators -- Time columnist Joe Klein, Newsweek scribe Jonathan Alter and National Review editor Rich Lowry -- tackled that issue in a discussion at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y moderated by Jeff Greenfield.

Klein, who's also a CNN regular, was most unequivocal in spotting bias.

"I do believe there's something weird a few of our colleagues have [against Clinton]," he said. "They tend to be Roman Catholics, actually. People like Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd. They've had it in for Bill and Hillary Clinton since Monica Lewinsky. They feel that the Clintons are trying to put one over on us all the time."

Lowry dismissed favorable treatment of Obama as "a classic bandwagon effect -- whoever's winning is a genius." But then he reversed course somewhat: "The glee we saw on the airwaves prior to New Hampshire about what everyone considered the imminent demise of Hillary Clinton was obvious." And analyzing last week's debate, he said, "I thought it was obvious that Tim Russert and Brian Williams were harder on Hillary Clinton."

Alter, for his part, actually drew loud boos for denying widespread media bias against Clinton. One male audience member seated near the back of the room even cried out "Bullshit!" (It should be noted that Alter is affiliated with NBC News, home to Williams, Russert and Matthews.)

Alter did say he thought Clinton was sometimes treated unfairly because she is a woman, but hedged even on that, saying, "It's hard to disaggregate her Clinton-ness from her gender."

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