I was complaining that the mainstream media’s peculiar notion of “fair and balanced” news was on display last week in some Washington Post stories about newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson.

I asked my neighbor Swamp Rabbit if he knew that the House had taken the speaker’s job away from Kevin McCarthy and then rejected a bid for the job by Jim Jordan, the ex-wrestling coach who legislates with all the wisdom and charm of a rabid dog. Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the House, settled on Johnson, an obscure Louisiana Bible beater.

Johnson is opposed to abortion rights, same-sex marriage, gun control and clean energy. He’s an unrepentant election denier who was close to planners of the Jan. 6 insurrection. He has yet to answer reporters’ questions about his involvement in efforts to block certification of the 2020 election results.

You might say Johnson is Jim Jordan without the rabies. Ruth Marcus in Washington Post put it more politely: Johnson “is Jordon in a more palatable package.”

But here’s where the coverage gets weird. A few days after Marcus’s opinion piece appeared, the Post ran a profile of Johnson by a staffer who cited Johnson’s “heavy reliance” on “family and faith.” The staffer included testimonials from Johnson’s hometown friends and Republican colleagues, and quoted his mother on what a swell guy he is.

The staffer should have addressed why Johnson was allowed to remain in office after trying to bring down the government. Maybe Johnson would have answered like Chuck Berry: Must have been some other body/It wasn’t me.

“I thought the article was fair and balanced,” Swamp Rabbit said, just to piss me off. “The reporter was nice to Johnson’s mom and didn’t mention that he don’t believe in honest elections. What you got against fair and balanced?”