Oops! RW toasts LA Times' Top of the Ticket as a great “conservative blog”

Kind of awkward, right? Editors at the Los Angeles Times position its daily political blog, Top of the Ticket, as the home of news and analysis, but certainly not as a conservative blog.

And why is that? Because the Times doesn't have a separate “liberal” blog, so it'd look pretty strange if one of the largest newspapers in America published only a conservative blog. I mean, the Times is supposed to be impartial and fair online, just like it's supposed to be impartial and fair in the news pages. And what sense would it make for the Times to only publish conservative voices online, assuming the daily isn't in the business of simply fishing for right-wing links in hopes of juicing traffic. But the Times would never stoop to that kind of low, right?

Think again.

Media Matters has been chronicling for quite a while how the Times' blog often serves as just another national platform for conservatives to regurgitate their daily anti-Obama talking points. We've highlighted how Laura Bush's former flak, Andrew Malcolm, appears to earn his Times paycheck by making up as much stuff as possible while cherry picking polling data. (Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.) And we've noted how the daily does not publish any liberal bloggers.

Now, turns out even the other side agrees. From the Right Wing News' list of the “40 Best Conservative Blogs” (note No. 20):

23) Cassy Fiano
22) The American Princess
21) Riehl World View
20) Top of The Ticket
19) Megan McArdle
18) Jammie Wearing Fool
17) Big Hollywood
16) Atlas Shrugs