For a good time with litmus tests, try and be an open conservative and getting a job at a newspaper, television station, or university.

I recognize fields that, broadly speaking, involve information dissemination to be something of a special case. Concerns about employment litmus tests cover broader ground, such as employment in science and engineering, where politics have no place.

I know that you consider any news that isn't slanted to the right to be slanted to the left. Can you consider the possibility that denying employment to an "open conservative" might be a goodfaith effort to preserve journalistic objectivity? Probably not. Yet it's not unreasonable to be leery of a journalist who clearly has an axe to grind, whether the blade is on the right or the left.

Money's a crucial factor in modern politics. Marketing a candidate has become no different from marketing any consumer product. All else being equal, the product with the bigger advertising budget will outsell the product with a smaller budget. Given the squalid lack of respect for truth and honesty in the advertising industry, this is a real cause for concern. It means that the outcome of modern elections no longer has an relationship to choosing the best candidate--it's simply the "best branded" candidate who wins. I seriously doubt that this is what the Founders intended.