Some in the media and the Democratic Party apprently are having a hissy fit that a reporter or two actually did their jobs and asked DNC chairman Howard Dean rather direct questions about his recent comments, according to the Washington Post (hat tips: Poynter and Michelle Malkin).

Media were invited Thursday to the monthly confab between Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Dean. After a lot of media pushing and shoving to fit 60 in a room that fits 20, Fox reporter Brian Wilson more or less took over and began to ask Dean about his litany of inappropriate comments since becoming DNC chairman:

He asked Dean “if people are focused on the other things that you’ve said about hating Republicans, about Republicans being dishonest and then this latest comment about the Republican Party is full of white Christians. You say you hate Republicans — does that mean you also'’ hate white Christians?

Dean was not impressed, and at least one other reporter joined in by asking Dean whether he would “change his ways,” if he regretted any of his previous comments, or if he intended to be “less confrontational in the future.” For those of you keeping track at home, Dean’s recent gaffe that the GOP is a white Christians only club, his other gems include stating that he “hates Republicans and everything they stand for,” that Republicans “have never made an honest living in their lives,” and said at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting that the GOP couldn’t similarly get people of color together without counting the hotel staff.

The reactions of Dean and Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) are indicative that the Democratic Party still hasn’t grasped that their ownership of the media is gone, and that they, like the GOP for the past 30 years, will have to get used to “pointed questions.” Read more:

“And all this other stuff is all fine and good, and we understand how exciting it all is to you,” Dean said, shaking his head.

[Durbin] chided the media for avoiding important issues in favor of trivial matters. “Please, for a minute, get to the substance,” he said to a group of reporters. “You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Except that these comments are not trivial — Dean has forced them into the national debate. Sorry, but Dean’s comments are legitimate news, especially since the very Democrats that Dean is supposed to be rallying support for are distancing themselves from him and his remarks. His conduct is compounded by his apparent inability to do what they appointed him to do. The DNC has raised $18.2 million through April, while the RNC has raised $42.6 million. Big donors are shying away, and Dean’s ability to generate Internet contributions isn’t panning out.

Also, explain to me how Dean’s comments about white Christians isn’t relevant news. The media and the Democrats learned the hard way last November about faith-based voters — both were taken by surprise that local pastors got their flocks to the polls in a way that Michael Moore could only dream of. But rather than appeal to this red-state flood, as any politician with half a brain would do, Dean is not only turning them away, but painting them as a threat.

Ergo, Dean’s comments are very much relevant and in play. A few journalists realized that, but most of them were shocked, shocked I say, that some evil right-wing Fox guy had the temerity to ask about them. Malkin offered a decent summary of their criticism:

Wilson raised his voice. And he didn’t wait his turn. And he didn’t ask “substantive” questions. Translation: He didn’t genuflect before the Democratic leadership or the Beltway journalistic elite, and he asked exactly what viewers wanted to know.

According to The Washington Times, Durbin is trying to put his media lapdogs back in their place, suppressing the sudden backbone of a handful by claiming the right wing has corrupted them.

“I think we all understand what’s happening with you all,” said Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, in remarks echoing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s blaming a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for her husband’s legal-ethical woes.

“The right wing has got the agenda moving. Fox [News Channel] and everybody’s got the agenda. It’s all about Howard Dean. You’ve bought into it,” Mr. Durbin said.

Durbin’s idea that the press are a bunch of righties is too stupid and uninformed to comment on, much less dissect with the mountains of evidence to the contrary. Just as MRC President Brent Bozell points out this week in his syndicated column, the press has all but buried Dean’s fund-raising woes, and many did their best to ignore his inflammatory comments altogether. As we saw with Eason Jordan and as we are seeing now with Linda Foley, burying bones is SOP for the media until it becomes too professionally damaging to ignore.