"After an extraordinarily productive two years in which Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley muscled through legislation on several top priorities — including same-sex marriage,gun control, transportation funding and repealing the death penalty — the question is: What, if anything, is there left for him to do before leaving office?"

That's how Washington Post staffer John Wagner opened his Metro section front-page April 22 story "O'Malley plans for rest of term -- and beyond." Nowhere in his 24-paragraph story did Wagner -- no stranger to NewsBusters criticism by the way -- cite any conservative or Republican critics of the liberal Democratic governor, a prospective 2016 presidential contender.

As if it weren't enough for the Washington Post to cheerlead for Maryland's new stringent gun control law in the editorial pages and in biased news accounts, staff writers Aaron Davis and Paul Schwartzman today rewarded liberal governor and potential 2016 presidential contender Martin O'Malley with a 62-paragraph front-page victory lap headlined "Behind Md.'s tough gun law, a personal push."

"Md. governor driven by one fear: Could Newtown happen here?" insisted the headline on the the jump page. Left virtually unexamined, of course, would be how O'Malley's push for stringent gun control would help him campaign among liberal base voters in the 2016 primaries. No, Davis and Schwartzman painted O'Malley as driven by a purely altruistic desire to spare Maryland parents the pain of burying their children thanks to a mad gunman's rage:

The Maryland legislature recently voted to abolish capital punishment in the state, making Maryland the sixth state in the last six years to eliminate the death penalty.

The primary argument for repealing the law is that our justice system is imperfect and it's possible an innocent person could be condemned. Indeed, anti-death penalty activists presented Kirk Bloodsworth, a former death-row inmate, convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. His conviction was overturned on appeal after the court found the prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. However, Bloodsworth was retried and sentenced to two life terms, a conviction later upheld on appeal. In 1993, Bloodsworth was exonerated after DNA linked someone else to the crime.

Soledad O'Brien apparently thinks President Obama should get the credit for states with low unemployment, as she pressed two Republican governors to admit on Friday's Starting Point.

Interviewing Gov. Terry Branstad (R-Iowa), O'Brien mentioned his state's low unemployment rate and asked "Do you think that the governors get the credit for that or shouldn't President Obama get the credit for that?" She phrased the question as though Obama should not only receive some, but the whole of the credit for the state's low unemployment.

Trying to help Democrats come up with a line of attack against the GOP in November on Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory teed up Maryland Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley to slam fellow guest, Republican Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell: "Do you think your counterpart here in Virginia would be a good running mate for Romney or would you cast him as an extremist?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

What would justify such a label? The answer to that can be found in this earlier question Gregory hit McDonnell with: "You backed an abortion bill initially that included a very invasive procedure as part of an ultrasound that the state would have required and then you backed off of that. Were you wrong to support that initially or did you simply back off because the political heat got turned up the way it did?"