COLUMN RIGHT/ JOSEPH FARAH : Liberal Press Gave Honig a Free Ride : It wasn’t a conspiracy but his perceived invulnerability that brought the schools chief down.

When Bill Honig blames his indictment, trial and conviction on felony conflict-of-interest charges on a right-wing conspiracy, he probably means me.

I was the editor of the only daily newspaper in the state that doggedly pursued the flagrant violations of the public trust by the California superintendent of schools until the attorney general’s office finally began an investigation.

For months, the tiny news staff at the Sacramento Union broke story after story about the cozy relationship between Honig’s Department of Education and his wife’s company, the Quality Education Project. Every time we published a new development, we waited in eager anticipation for our colleagues in the press to jump in, pick up our stories and perhaps even do a little enterprise reporting of their own.

Needless to say, they seldom did. I kept wondering why. And now, having read Honig’s political obituaries in the mainstream Establishment California press, I think I finally understand why other news agencies chose to sit on the sidelines during one of the state’s biggest political scandals.

According to the prevailing media Zeitgeist, it seems Honig isn’t so much a lawbreaker as a victim of his own uncompromising devotion to education reform. Maybe, the pundits say, Honig was technically guilty, but he really believed in what he was doing and had all the best intentions.

Translation: Bill Honig is a die-hard liberal true believer who thought the answer to every educational problem was more taxation and more spending on the schools. That’s why no other media outlets were interested in pursuing the story. Bill Honig, you see, was a good guy. Never mind the fact that, by almost any standard, the performance of the state’s public schools declined dramatically during his decade-plus of leadership. He was, after all, a “zealous advocate for education.” His rhetoric was great. The poor state of our schools could easily be blamed on Reagan, Bush, Deukmejian and Wilson.

Even during his trial, the media apologies for Honig continued. When the superintendent’s defense team disagreed with evidentiary rulings by Judge James Long, a Jerry Brown appointee, one major newspaper concluded Long must therefore be a Republican. Honig’s attorneys seemed stunned that the judge wouldn’t allow them to explain to the jury all of the high ideals that led the superintendent to allow his wife’s company to benefit from contracts with his department. After all, most reporters in the state had fallen for this ruse. And lest anyone get the impression that Honig was just your run-of-the-mill felon, virtually every news story during the trial repeated his wild charges about how he was really a victim of persecution by a mysterious cabal of unnamed right-wing religious extremists.

Given the media coverage of Honig’s tenure as superintendent, it must have been a shock to most Californians when he was indicted. And judging from the press coverage of the trial, it must have been a bigger surprise when he was convicted.

Did Honig benefit from a double standard in the press? You bet. If it hadn’t been for one financially troubled alternative newspaper voice in the state capital, Honig not only would have avoided indictment on conflict-of-interest charges, he probably would be serving today as President Clinton’s education secretary.

The worst and most pervasive media bias is the kind that evidences itself not in how stories are written but in which ones newspapers choose to cover at all. This new, slippery press mindset--which apparently holds only certain kinds of politicians accountable--is extremely dangerous. While it is a fact that most reporters and editors are liberals and Democrats, the Fourth Estate, by definition, must remain skeptical about government no matter which party or ideology rules.

After all, every politician really believes he or she is right. They all think they’re incapable of error. They all know that their cause is just and righteous. Liberals don’t have a monopoly on that kind of presumptuousness. This may come as a shock to the journalists who are now evaluating motives rather than deeds, but every politician contends that he or she is working in the public interest--even the conservative and Republican crooks.

No, it wasn’t some far-flung political or religious conspiracy that did Honig in. It was his near certainty that as an established do-gooder he was invulnerable to criticism. Only a politician who knew he had the press in his hip pocket could be that arrogant.