Yet media critics were livid Tuesday morning - not at CBS's willingness to become the broadcast wing of the Democratic Party's attack machine - but at Sinclair, for what the press is calling an act of naked partisanship.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz complains: "[Sinclair] executives have made 97 percent of their political donations during the 2004 election cycle to Bush and the Republicans."

Perish the thought that media owners might contribute to political candidates. CBS-Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone, by the way, pledged to raise $100,000 for John Kerry earlier this year, according to Broadcasting & Cable - without so much as a peep of protest from Mr. Kurtz.

The Post scribe also quotes Federal Communications Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, who complained about Sinclair in a statement yesterday:

"This is an abuse of the public trust. And it is proof positive of media consolidation run amok when one owner can use the public airwaves to blanket the country with its political ideology -- whether liberal or conservative."

Blanket the country? Sinclair reaches just 25 percent of the nation's television sets. The number of viewers who actually watch Sinclair is likely a far smaller percentage.

But according to Kurtz, Sinclair has suddenly become a media giant, amassing "the nation's largest collection of television stations."

Mr. Copps, by the way, has been mercifully silent when it comes to CBS's perhaps accidental involvement in a criminal conspiracy to use forged documents in a bid to rig the 2004 presidential election.

And while Republican congressmen have been reluctant to call for any Rathergate investigation, Democrats haven't wasted a nanosecond swinging into action against Sinclair.

Notes Kurtz:

"Eighteen Democratic senators, led by Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), sent a letter to the FCC yesterday requesting an investigation into Sinclair's decision 'to air such a blatantly partisan attack in lieu of regular programming.'"

Speaking of partisan attacks, we trust that Sen. Feinstein will be calling any day now for an investigation into the decision by "60 Minutes" to showcase one partisan attack screed after another this year - including books authored by Kerry campaign consultants like Joe Wilson and Richard Clarke.

If Mr. Kurtz had a problem with "60 Minutes" morphing into the anti-Bush version of "Booknotes," he's kept his complaints to himself.

But in just the 72-hours since the Sinclair story broke, the Post media critic has managed to round-up an astonishing array of good governent types who are troubled over the network's plan to air the Kerry documentary.

He quotes Josh Silver, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Free Press, who complains: "Sinclair is putting their political interests ahead of journalistic standards by calling this anti-Kerry documentary news, which it's not. . . . It's reprehensible at best, illegal at worst."

There's that pesky "I" word again. Of course, nothing Sinclair has done is even remotely illegal. But again, Silver has nothing to say about the prospect that CBS may be an accessory after the fact to a criminal conspiracy to fix a presidential election.

Now there's something that bears investigating.

Editor's note: