In all my time studying media bias, I’ve never come across such a remarkable case as this.

On a day when the Senate Republicans were voting against a cloture motion, the newspapers were reporting this:

CNN: GOP blocks Senate debate on Iraq resolution
Washington Post: GOP Stalls Debate On Troop Increase
AP: Republicans Block Senate Debate on Iraq

As Lance at A Second Hand Conjecture, Glenn Reynolds and Ed Morrissey point out, cloture means putting an end to a debate. It was Democrats who were voting for an end to debate, not Republicans.

But perhaps the most ridiculous comments were made by TIME columnist Joe Klein at his “Swampland” blog:

I just spoke with a prominent Democratic member of the Senate who is worried that the anti-surge forces won’t be able to muster the 60 votes necessary to open debate this evening on the Warner resolution to oppose the President’s policies in Iraq.

If so, the Republicans are going to have to explain what they have against free speech…

James Taranto reminds us that it wasn’t long ago that Democrats, the New York Times and friends were ever-so interested in saving the filibuster — that wonderful tool of open debate — from the power-hungry clutches of a Republican majority: “we don’t recall the paper using the ‘block debate’ formulation back when the Democrats were filibustering judicial nominations.”

No, then a vote against closure was a vote against a President who wanted to rush through his policies without debate, over the objections of the all-important minority party. Democrats such as Robert Byrd and John Kerry were adamant that a rules change allowing a simple majority to end a filibuster would destroy our very democracy (even though Democrats had themselves changed the threshold from 67 to 60 votes in 1975).

Now a Republican filibuster is a barrier to debate and an insult to “free speech.”

As if Klein hadn’t already showed his supreme ignorance, he later posted a liveblogging update:

Boy, is this confusing! Arlen Spector [sic] is arguing that “this is not a debate to be short-circuited”….but he’s arguing against Democrats, arguing that they’re trying to limit amendments, and therefore he’s going to vote against cloture?

Get a freaking clue, man.

I can’t stop myself from quoting Kerry’s rant again:

You want to use the power of ending a filibuster? Just have the filibuster for week after week after week and let people stand up and make their arguments, and if the arguments have no currency — believe me — between the press and public opinion and the bloggers and C-SPAN, this country will rise up, and you’ll get your 60 votes, if you deserve them. That’s an up-or-down vote of it’s own kind — you vote!

Ahhh, the good old days…

Today, of course, Sen. Kerry voted for cloture.

Which means putting an end to debate. Except when it doesn’t.

UPDATE: At least USA Today gets it right with this subhead: Each party says other is trying to limit debate… which places our Leftist media clearly on one side.

UPDATE II: Longer Chris Davis: “If I disagree with your argument or analysis, I’m going to rephrase it in the most slanted way possible and call you vulgar names, but in a way that leaves me with plausible deniability, because I’m childish and spineless, and that’s the way I roll.”