There are few people in Washington, D.C., better at diagnosing media bias than Brent Bozell. As the longtime leader of the Media Research Center (and my former boss), Bozell has literally seen it all. The MRC’s extensive collection of TV newscasts dates back a couple decades, featuring some of the worst moments in journalism and most egregious examples of bias ever recorded.

But when Hillary Clinton came up in the context of a new book about the media’s coverage of her, Bozell wasn’t sure there was much left to say. It just took a little digging, however, to discover that the great untold story of the past 15 years in American politics has been the giant pass given to Hillary by reporters across America.

Speaking to a group of conservative bloggers yesterday at the Heritage Foundation, Bozell said he didn’t have to look very far to see that when it came to covering Hillary, reporters engaged in a game of bias by both commission and omission. (Joe Mansour of TechRepublican and Ericka Andersen of Human Events also have recaps of the meeting.)

Take Hillary’s scandals, for example. Bozell said not one of them — zero, zip, nada — has every been resolved. Questions linger about each and every one, yet there’s been virtually no coverage of any of them during the 2008 election cycle. Bozell documents the evidence in his book, “Whitewash: What the Media Won’t Tell You About Hillary Clinton, but Conservatives Will.”

The problem, as Bozell sees it, is a double-standard for Hillary. When she flip flopped on giving drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants, the press dropped the story, choosing to praise Hillary’s performance at the debate rather than engage in a serious examination of her policy position. Bozell attributes it mostly to the laziness of reporters, who fail to ask substantive questions and appear frightened to challenge Hillary on anything.

The same pattern is developing with Barack Obama, Bozell said. He called the Illinois senator woefully inexperienced, noting that his greatest attribute is that he’s a good speaker. “If I were to write a book about Obama,” Bozell said, “it would be an empty book.”

It came as no surprise to me, but it was still encouraging to hear Bozell cite bloggers as an important force in countering these trends. Talk radio has played an important role — hence why it’s come under attack with talk of reviving the Fairness Doctrine — but the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity can only do so much. With websites such as Stop Her Now and Hillary experts such as Townhall’s Amanda Carpenter dotting the new-media landscape, I think it’s safe to say conservatives are keeping a close watch.