Today, Dan Balz of the Washington Post wrote an article purporting to assess whether or not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama could win the support of white men. Of course, the article was really more about Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton, as the headline reveals:

White Male Vote Especially Critical
Questions Remain Over Obama's Ability to Appeal to Demographic

Balz argues:

The results in Ohio in particular raised questions about whether Obama can attract support from this crucial demographic.

But in Balz's own article he refutes his own thesis. After FOURTEEN paragraphs, he offers up this this juicy morsel:

In 27 states where exit polls were conducted, starting with Iowa on Jan. 3 and ending with Mississippi last week, Clinton won the white male vote 11 times and Obama 10 times. In five states, they basically split the votes of white men. Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) carried white men in South Carolina.

C'mon Dan. You think we don't see how hackish your analysis is?

It would be nice if the WaPo hired reporters who either understand the subject matter they cover, or who weren't biased. Someone like Mark Blumenthal, perhaps. He wrote this in mid-February (before Ohio):

Much was made this week of Obama's performance among white men in Virginia. Indeed, his support with white men was seen as both the key to Obama's Potomac Primary victories, as well as a sign of broadening support to include those formerly in Clinton's base. Others are skeptical, even worrying that while male superdelegates might tip the scale toward Clinton.

In fact, Virginia was neither the first state (nor even first Southern state) where Obama bested Clinton among white men. Nor was it the state where he won this group by the largest margin. Obama has been doing well with this group since the beginning of primary season.

Below is a table of the Clinton/Obama vote among white men, from exit poll data from every contest thus far. The table is ranked in descending order, with the state showing the largest Obama margin at the top.

Moreover, if you include caucus states in the calculation, it's almost certain that Barack Obama has won the white male vote overall (for those who insist on slicing and dicing America like Mark Penn).

Perhaps it would be fair to ask if Barack Obama can win the votes of racist white men, but then again, the answer to that should be pretty obvious -- and it's not clear how many white man are that racist, and how many of those who are wouldn't also be sexist -- and vote for John McCain instead of Hillary Clinton. My guess: there's a lot of overlap.

And while Balz's article did touch on some issues related to that, he and his headline writer framed the article in a deeply dishonest way.

I guess the good news is that at least we can put to rest the silly notion that the MSM is biased in favor of Barack Obama.

(I'm sure Team HRC will disagree -- according to her new rules, the MSM showed its pro-Obama bias by reporting the fact that he had won eleven straight contests, building an insurmountable pledged delegate lead in the process.)