WASHINGTON -- Always in the center of Hillary Clinton's theory about a "vast right-wing conspiracy" out to get her husband, is reclusive Pittsburgh newspaper publisher, Richard Mellon Scaife.

Scaife, we are told, is obsessed with getting Clinton out of office and throws money at any effort to undermine the administration.

Yet, the seminal report documenting this "vast, right-wing conspiracy," the White House's 331-page "Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce," was hard-pressed to name very many participants in the plot. In fact, only one actual working journalist is profiled in the voluminous report -- me.

I shouldn't have to say this, but, in an effort to derail the inevitable attacks of the Clinton propaganda machine, I will swear that my organization has received no funding from Scaife or his foundations since early 1995, when they embarked on their so-called "Arkansas Project." Not that it should make any difference, mind you. I'd be happy to accept Scaife's money. There's nothing tainted about it.

Dozens and dozens of left-wing "philanthropists" are free to fund media causes designed to make the president and government in general look good without any criticism -- without any questions of conflict of interest. No one gives it a second thought. No one suggests that journalists working for such outfits are "hired guns." Why the double standard?

One interesting case study is the Internet's Salon Magazine. Salon is well-known for supporting -- or at least excusing -- virtually anything the Clinton administration does. Every issue contains at least one brazenly apologetic ode to the White House. Attacking Clinton foes, like Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, is a mainstay of the journal.

"White House allies sometimes tout Salon pieces to reporters before they are even posted on the Web," wrote Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post last month. Salon's Washington correspondent, Jonathan Broder and frequent contributor Joe Conason are longtime friends of White House attack dog Sidney Blumenthal.

Not only is Salon a key component of a real, documented, bonafide "left-wing conspiracy," it is also a classic illustration of what I call the "government-media complex." Salon's staff is a pathetic collection of privileged and coddled journalistic hacks serving not as watchdogs of government, but as lapdogs.

So, who's behind Salon? Why aren't they asking that question at Time, Newsweek and U.S. News? Why don't the Washington Post and New York Times do investigative reports on the secret sugar daddies behind the government's mouthpieces? Here's the secret money trail you won't see explored on "60 Minutes."

It turns out a major Democratic Party donor is one of the principal backers of Salon. His name is William Hambrecht, a co-founder of Hambrecht and Quist, a Silicon Valley investment banking firm. The company provided venture capital investments to both Adobe and Apple, computer businesses that also bankroll Salon. Hambrecht even serves on Adobe's board of directors.

As recently as last February, Hambrecht hosted a $10,000-a-person fund-raising dinner at his San Francisco home for Democratic House candidates attended by President Clinton. Between 1991 and 1997, Hambrecht contributed more than $284,000 to Democratic candidates and organizations exclusively. John Warnock, the top executive of Adobe, contributed more than $18,000 to Democratic office seekers. Steve Jobs, head of Apple, gave $167,500 to the party's candidates.

Isn't it interesting to note how the White House is promoting favorite Internet sites -- just as it once tried to recruit and push favored radio talk-show hosts? The old threat to exposing White House lies was talk radio. The new threat is the Internet. With WorldNetDaily and the DrudgeReport becoming "the Rush Limbaughs of the Web," the government is doing what it can for its friends -- finding investors, promoting sites, even handing out "exclusives" actually unearthed by political private investigators.

So tell me something: If Dick Scaife's political opposition to Bill Clinton is such big news, why isn't it equally newsworthy that partisans like Hambrecht -- and a thousand others like him in the media -- are using their own presses to push their own agendas?

After all, Scaife is accused of nothing more than funding, with his own money, investigative reporting into the scandalous activities of arguably the most corrupt administration in the history of America. The White House has, at the same time, spent millions of taxpayer dollars trying to cover up those scandals. Nevertheless, the media are able to spin citizen Scaife into the bad guy and Clinton, the most powerful politician on the planet, into the victim.

It makes you wonder. Why would Americans express more concern with one renegade publisher who breaks ranks with the political culture of his industry to criticize and expose government corruption than over the 99 percent of the publishers who choose the safe, pro-establishment, status quo, see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil path?