If you want to see just how skewed news coverage has become, it’s often instructive to compare the media’s treatment of two events which are basically the same, except that the party roles are reversed. This year, with Republicans in control of the White House, House and Senate, journalists are actively electioneering on behalf of Democrats, as a way to diminish the power of President Trump.

“In the midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone to a voting station to vote for a Democrat,” Tom Friedman demanded in his October 31 New York Times column.

The next morning, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski offered her own partisan prescription: “If you want a slight check on this man [President Trump] and his unrelenting race to the finish here to make sure he can continue destroying this country, you might want to vote all ‘D,’ even if it’s not your party this time around. It might be worth it.”

But eight years ago, when Democrats held both the House and Senate going into President Obama’s first midterm elections, the media were distressed that liberal power might be diluted, and upset that voters failed to appreciate the tremendous “victories” and “amazing legislative agenda” that Obama and the Democrats had accomplished.

Instead of suggesting that handing the House of Representatives to Republicans might stop some of the excesses of the Obama administration, the media villainized conservatives, with some reporters even claiming that anything less than one-party Democratic control of the government meant “your freedom is at stake.”

And while today’s journalists freak out when President Trump takes partisan shots at Democrats, the media in 2010 wanted President Obama to be even tougher on Republicans — with NBC’s Matt Lauer telling the President that other Democrats felt he hadn’t been “rigorous enough in pushing back against some of the Republican attacks.”

A quick flashback: