This has been happening for years, but it bears mentioning again, if only to let you know that The Associated Press seems incapable of correcting this obvious bias.

Here’s the story the AP ran yesterday when a federal judge in Richmond ruled that the individual mandate in the Obama health care plan is unconstitutional (my emphasis added):

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s historic health care overhaul hit its first major legal roadblock Monday, thrown into doubt by a federal judge’s declaration that the heart of the sweeping legislation is unconstitutional.

The decision handed Republican foes ammunition for their repeal effort next year as the law heads for almost certain eventual judgment by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, a Republican appointee in Richmond, Va., marked the first successful court challenge to any portion of the law, following two earlier rulings in its favor by Democratic-appointed judges.

No one could have any problem with a news agency consistently pointing out, in stories about key court cases, who appointed the federal judge or judges who made the ruling. That’s important information, in my view.

The problem has been, for years, as I said before, that the AP and the major newspapers do not consistently do this. In fact, they pretty consistently identify the judges appointed by Reagan or the Bushes, and rarely identify judges appointed by Clinton or Carter.

Note that after identifying Hudson’s partisan affiliation, the AP feels compelled to mention that, oh, by the way, two other decisions that went Obama’s way were ruled upon by Democratic judges.

But how did they report those decisions at the time?

Here’s AP’s story on one of those earlier decision that went Obama’s way:

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed Liberty University’s lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s new federal health care law, declaring that a provision requiring most individuals to obtain insurance is constitutional.

University law school dean Mathew Staver said in a telephone interview that he will promptly appeal the ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon in Lynchburg is the second court decision upholding the law, following one in Michigan in October. Officials from several states have filed another lawsuit in Florida, and a separate challenge by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli is pending in federal court in Richmond.

The story continues, but there is no reference anywhere as to who appointed Moon (it was Clinton, by the way).

Here’s the story on that other recent case that went Obama’s way:

A federal judge in Detroit has rejected an attempt to stop some provisions of the new national health-care law.

Judge George Caram Steeh says Congress did not exceed its authority by requiring people to have insurance by 2014. He also turned down a challenge Thursday to the financial penalty that comes with having no insurance.

A Michigan-based Christian legal group and four people filed a lawsuit in March, claiming the law is unconstitutional.

Steeh also is a Clinton appointee, but you’d never know it from the AP story. As with Moon, they never identify his presidential appointer. Why did they decide it was an important fact only yesterday? And why did they only yesterday decide to report that the two other cases that supported Obama’s position were decided by Democratic judges?

It’s pretty clear the media feel that identifying the GOP affiliation of a judge casts doubts on the objectivity of the judge and of his decision. It’s also clear that the media feel that not identifying the Democrat affiliation of a judge lends an air of impartiality to the decision and to the judge.

Whenever I see this ploy I ask myself, “Just how dumb do they think we are?” My rule of thumb has always been, when no affiliation is given, it’s a Democrat. The same goes for stories about public officials caught in corruption. The Republican will always be named in the story. The Democrat almost never is.

Jon Ham is vice president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of its newspaper Carolina Journal.