RTE's poor coverge of US politics

Sometimes I just don't understand RTE.

Today on their web site they posted a short piece on the Karl Rove/Joe Wilson/Etc 'scandal'. The headline reads "White House accused of cover-up".

This has been posted after I found out (without any effort because I really don't much care):

1. Rove indirectly confirmed that Wilson's wife was the person who had suggested sending Wilson to Niger and that he (Rove) only learned this from a journalist
2. that it's entirely possible that no crime was committed by anyone
3. that Joe Wilson himself admitted yesterday that his wife was not a clandestine operative at the time that this mess started with Robert Novak's column. UPDATE: Having just read this from the Corner, I think I misunderstood what Wilson said yesterday.

If Richard Cohen (who is definitely not a Bush supporter), is saying that Rove almost certainly committed no crime, then surely RTE would be better off just letting this go. This has the look of just dirty Washington politics – probably equally dirty from both sides.

This sort of thing happens frequently here. I'm not sure why, but RTE seems to revel in these inside the Beltway dirty battles. And, their coverage is slanted towards the Democrats' position. It's as if RTE's news is simply rehashed press releases from the Democratic Party HQ.

This is actually a disservice to the Irish people. The Irish people pay €152 annual license fee for RTE and in return get a very poor service. Rather than feeding us one side's propaganda, RTE should play a more dispassionate role when presenting US politics. This would allow their listeners to get a more rounded view of events in America and not be surprised by events such as President Bush's reelection, which if you had only followed RTE would have been seemed like turkeys voting for Thanksgiving Day.

I have no doubt that there are similar dirty battles in Irish politics, but RTE is bound by law to provide balanced coverage. No such restrictions apply to their coverage of American politics, however and it shows. Their coverage is sloppy, silly and useless.