Here's how it works: Mainstream America is heavily conditioned to believe that Fox News represents the far right of the political spectrum while The New York Times is lefter than left . . . and anyone with opinions off this limited chart is ignored, mocked, or, if all else fails, arrested and/or eliminated with extreme prejudice. Thus, the parameters of debate in the land of the free are narrower than Ann Coulter's mind.

The aforementioned New York Times, we're led to believe, is edited by an unwashed band of granola chomping tree huggers. However, those same pinko publishers chose, this summer, to publish an essay -- essentially a 2,400-word assault -- by restaurant critic Frank Bruni, entitled "Life in the Fast-Food Lane."

Food snob Bruni, it seems, had taken to the road "to size up and single out the best fast food from familiar national chains, relatively unfamiliar regional chains and tiny local chains I had never encountered." Calling this the "culinary road less traveled," Bruni is quick to remind us that despite this jaunt, he's more accustomed to consuming "veal sweetbreads and duck liver p�t�."

Let's stop there. If there were even a shred of truth in the Times' liberal reputation, any discussion of veal and duck liver p�t� would serve to expose the unspeakable cruelty behind such alleged delicacies. Instead, we have the pretentious Bruni slumming, in order to discover enduring truths like this: "Flame, or at least a suggestion of grilling or broiling, matters. That's a principal reason a Whopper bested a Big Mac, cooked on a griddle. It's why the new roster of one-third-pound charbroiled Thickburgers at Hardee's tasted better than the steamed slivers at Krystal, a White Castle analogue in the South."

To him, McDonald's hash browns are "sculptured by unseen Michelangelos of fast food." Culver's, he opines, offers "an inspired creation that layers coleslaw atop the chili atop a meaty, smoky hot dog, producing a riot of textures and hot-cool sensations that I'm determined to experience at least once again in this life." Of KFC's "Original Recipe" chicken, Bruni cooed: "The battered skin wasn't too peppery, the frequent sin of much fried chicken to come. The flesh was positively juicy. And the Colonel, in my book, deserved a promotion to commander in chief."

The lesson for Bruni: "On the right road, with the right company, there may well be as much satisfaction at the low end of dining as there is at the high end."

The lesson for the rest of us: The media is as liberal or conservative as the corporations that own it.