REPUBLICAN MSM NOT AN OXYMORON.

Byline: BRIDGET JOHNSON

FOR far too long, I thought ``MSM'' stood for something kinky. But this initialism means something far more sinister, a favorite topic of derision in the blogosphere: the mainstream media.

I first heard the term from fellow conservatives around the time of Dan Rather's tarring and feathering. It's all over the blogs: MSM wants America to crash and burn. MSM has bin Laden over for brunch. MSM has red horns and a pitchfork.

MSM, the new mark of the Beast. MSM, which lurks in your cable box and lands with a thud each morning on your porch. Keep small children and vulnerable animals away from MSM. Think that's a kitten meowing for a saucer of milk outside the back door? It's really MSM.

But wait a minute: I am MSM!

``No, you're not really one of them, really,'' a conservative blogger offered in a soothing tone.

Let's see ... I've been a journalist my whole adult life (save the college party years that don't count as adulthood), and yet I'm still not one of them? Either I've done something wrong or the theory that all mainstream media think and vote the same - and tailor their stories with such bias - has received an eensie teensie bit of debunking.

Or maybe I've been so brainwashed by the MSM gods that I don't know the difference.

Wait! That secret MSM handshake should have been a dead giveaway that I was accepted into the program, a Republican allowed in like an affirmative action quota. And once on the inside, I was privy to that which makes some conservatives wake in a cold sweat: MSM.

Yet at what price MSM? Have I sold my soul to the MSM machine for a few juicy stories and a few newsroom potlucks?

After eight years immersed in MSM, I can report my observations to the rest of the world. Hold on to your seat belts. The Beast is about to be revealed.

Throughout the years, in myriad cities at big and small publications, I have consciously worked side by side with journalists whose views differ from mine. And - get this - I have enjoyed it.

Having been a reporter, editor and columnist, I've never been in a news meeting where we plotted ways to inflict fatal wounds on the vast right- wing conspiracy. (They make me cover my ears and start singing ``LA-LA-LA'' before plotting.)

I never received an official MSM voting guide. And though I've often been a lonely celebrant on election nights, I've never been drawn and quartered. (After all, a newsroom can never waste staff resources.)

Not that there isn't media bias. What's tricky is rounding up a large gathering of MSM who all have the same bias. There are many, many liberals in the news biz, and a good chunk who identify themselves as moderate. Some let those views influence their work, and some don't.

Yet even though I'm apparently walking around with the modern fleur-de-lis - the brand of the MSM - reality doesn't always satisfy the conspiracy-starved.

My agent once tried to sell a conservative imprint on a book proposal where I related humorous tales of life as a GOP journalist. The publisher nixed the project because they wanted something hard, gritty, dramatic, full of discrimination and suicide contemplations. Something in the vein of ``MSM: One Woman's Courageous Tale of Survival,'' starring Eric Roberts and Valerie Bertinelli and airing on Lifetime Television.

Conservative plus newsroom equals humor just must be so un-MSM.

Yet it's fine if I carry the stigma of MSM for the rest of my life. I've come to grips with my nearly criminal career choice. Because I can look in the mirror and say: I am a card-carrying member of the MSM and I'm OK, darn it!

But was I really implanted with a microchip that's ordering me to say this? As if any newspaper has a budget for that technology - unless it's a double-secret experimentation project funded by the MSM collaborative.