On Tuesday, George W. Bush will go head to head with Al Gore in the first presidential debate. Will the referees be wearing gloves also?

The referees are Washington's press pack, which has dictated the campaign's direction for a month. In a capital press corps lacking ideological diversity - reporters voted 89 percent for Bill Clinton and just 7 percent for George Bush in 1992, according to a Roper-Freedom Forum poll - that direction has decidedly favored Democrat Gore. So glaring has the press interference been, it has caught the attention of both GOP partisans and respected media critics like the National Journal's Charlie Cook, Fox News' Brit Hume and the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz.

"It is the elephant in the room, the talk of the radio airwaves, the shadow that some believe is hovering over the presidential race. Over the past month, many conservatives, Republican voters and even some journalists themselves have concluded that the mainstream media are tilting heavily toward Vice-President Gore," Kurtz wrote on Sept. 25.

Emerging from Los Angeles, Gore rode a wave of positive press over his selection of Joe Lieberman as his running mate, the first Jewish candidate on a presidential ticket. But Lieberman's identification as an Orthodox Jew, a rigidly conservative wing of the Jewish faith, should have been a red flag by media standards.

Indeed, when George Bush (a Methodist) merely spoke on the campus of Baptist Bob Jones University - which forbade interracial dating and disparages Catholicism - the Washington press corps tagged the self-described compassionate conservative Bush as the far right's water boy.

But no such controversy has dogged Lieberman, who regularly worships in Orthodox synagogues that forbid interfaith marriage, have separate seating for women and prohibit the ordination of female rabbis. In an election where the media has highlighted the importance of the women's vote, one would have expected coverage of Lieberman's fundamentalist faith. Not only is his faith out of step with feminist America, but it is out of step with the other three candidates. Gore, a Southern Baptist, has been outspoken about his church's lack of female priests, and Bush and Cheney both belong to the Methodist church, which ordains women ministers.

Despite these facts, the media have parroted Gore's spin that Lieberman is a religious pioneer.

Unfortunately, this double standard is routine. New York Times reporter Andrew Clymer's bias this year against Bush is so evident he has become the regular subject of stories in the conservative press. The open mike flap, where Bush called Clymer a swear word, dominated coverage at the expense of substance for days. And Clymer himself lived up to Bush's remark by occupying prime real estate on a Sunday Times section front to discuss himself under the headline "Bush-League Aside Vaults An Onlooker Into the Campaign's Glare."

Struggling to break free of the press's agenda, Bush announced his plan to reform Medicare on Sept. 5. But he was immediately drowned out by one of the most absurd political stories of recent memory.

The Times published a front-page story, planted by the Gore campaign, that the Bush campaign was subliminally using the word "rats" to brainwash America's voters. The story recalled religious conservative claims in 1995 that Disney was subliminally planting the word "sex" in children's movies like The Lion King. The press, including the Times, laughed off that story, giving it dismissive coverage.

The "rat" conspiracy generated quite a different response. Reporter Richard Berke reported the ad's contents and then consulted "experts" to confirm their harm. The rest of the pack followed as "Ratgate" headlined news broadcasts.

By contrast, notes the Post's Kurtz, when "Gore had misstated the prices of prescription drugs for his mother-in-law and his dog, the Big Three evening newscasts didn't touch the controversy."

If Bush is to displace an incumbent in good economic times, he will have to explain why Gore is unfit to lead. But it is a case he will have to make over the heads of Washington's media.

On a recent trip through Monroe County, MI, I spoke with dozens of voters tired of political chatter about debate schedules and "rats" flaps. They wanted to talk about real issues. Perhaps the debates will let them hear some.