Media air kisses for Jeffords. (Beat the Press).(Sen Jim Jeffords)(Brief Article)

I don't like Senator Jim Jeffords. I admit my bias the way a Yankees fan admits his bias against the Red Sox, the way dog people admit their bias against cat people. I just wish venerable news outfits like "60 Minutes" could admit theirs.

A case in point was the recent "60 Minutes" profile of Senator Jeffords following the release of his new book I'm a Sausage-Spined Backstabber. Oops sorry, that's what the title should be. The book is actually called My Declaration of Independence.

James Jeffords, longtime Republican senator from Vermont, ran for re-election in 2000. He won as a Republican in a national election which left the Senate with a one-seat GOP majority. Jeffords' version of the story is that his "conscience" forced him to leave the party--handing control of the Senate to the Democrats and giving a huge wedgie to President Bush--because the GOP had become too conservative.

Jeffords cited abortion, the environment, affirmative action, and other run-of-the-mill bugaboos. But Jeffords knew the party's positions on these issues--and comfortably voted his own way--for years, and never threatened to leave. He certainly knew where George Bush stood on these issues during the campaign. The one issue Jeffords singled out for particular emphasis was education spending under Bush's first budget. Jeffords felt it was not enough, despite the fact that the education bill was shaping up to be the most expensive one in at least three generations.

An alternate version of events, discussed openly in Washington, is that Jeffords bolted because a) he was afraid that 98-year-old Senator Strom Thurmond was about to die, throwing the GOP, and Jeffords specifically, into minority status, leaving him with no power; and b) his precious Northeast Dairy Compact, a by-zantine bit of milk socialism cherished by dairy farmers in Vermont and reviled by economists, consumers, and more efficient dairy farmers, was on the verge of getting axed. Pundits from George Stephanopoulos to Norman Ornstein all but declared Jeffords had no choice but to leave the party if he lost his milk subsidies.

Back to "60 Minutes" The December 16 broadcast could have been produced by Jeffords' publicist. I checked the credits to make sure it wasn't. It had the feel of one of those post-WWII interviews with De Gaulle or Churchill where journalists ask the statesman, while he ...