NPR a relatively even-handed news source?

Not according to Harvard University's "Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy" (hardly a conservative bastion). In a study of presidential campaign coverage in 2007, NPR stood out from other news outlets in how little negative coverage it gave democrats:

"Like the media overall, the first 30 minutes NPR’s Morning Edition produced more stories about Democratic candidates than Republicans (41% vs. 24%). What was different was how little negative coverage Democrats received, especially compared with all other media. Stories about a Democratic candidate were more seven times more positive than negative: 41% positive vs. 6% negative. The majority of coverage, 53% of stories, was neutral."

"Looking at specific candidates, stories about Barack Obama carried a clearly positive tone two-thirds of the time. Not a single Morning Edition story was negative. Furthermore, 43% of Hillary Clinton’s coverage was positive vs. 14% negative."

...

"NPR was also the one outlet where there was a marked difference between the total amount of airtime vs. total number of stories. While 24% of the campaign stories were about a Republican candidate, just 15% of the total airtime was spent on them. This suggests that stories about the Republican candidates were brief, creating an even greater gap in the total coverage of Republicans and Democrats."

Republicans are more selfish?

This prejudice is so common and yet so easy to refute. All you have to do is find a non-partisan list of the 50 states ranked according to philanthropic giving, such as this one.

(Methodology: "We compare the rank of each state's average adjusted gross income to the rank of each state's average itemized charitable deductions," so the ranking takes into account the average income in a state, not merely the raw charity amount per state.)

Then find an electoral map of red/blue states, such as this one based on voting patterns in the past four presidential elections:

The result is below (updated for the 2008 election) - every state, from most philanthropic to the least, with their voting classification next to them. The pattern is pretty stark - the top 25 most philanthropic states heavily lean red, and the bottom 25 heavily lean blue. In fact, a neutral state doesn't even appear until #18, and bluish state doesn't even appear until #22:

1. Mississippi: Red
2. Arkansas: Pink
3. South Dakota: Red
4. Oklahoma: Red
5. Tennessee: Pink
6. Alabama: Red
7. Louisiana: Pink
8. Utah: Red
9. South Carolina: Red
10. West Virginia: Pink
11. Idaho: Red
12. Texas: Red
13. Nebraska: Red
14. North Dakota: Red
15. Wyoming: Red
16. North Carolina: Pink
17. Kansas: Red
18. Florida: Neutral
19. Georgia: Red
20. Missouri: Pink
21. Kentucky: Pink
22. New Mexico: Light blue
23. Montana: Red
24. Indiana: Pink
25. Alaska: Red
26. New York: Blue
27. Iowa: Light blue
28. Nevada: Neutral
29. Ohio: Neutral
30. Maine: Blue
31. California: Blue
32. Maryland: Blue
33. Washington: Blue
34. Vermont: Blue
35. Oregon: Blue
36. Pennsylvania: Blue
37. Virginia: Pink
38. Arizona: Pink
39. Delaware: Blue
40. Illinois: Blue
41. Michigan: Blue
42. Hawaii: Blue
43. Colorado: Pink
44. Minnesota: Blue
45. Connecticut: Blue
46. Wisconsin: Blue
47. Rhode Island: Blue
48. New Jersey: Blue
49. Massachusetts: Blue
50. New Hampshire: Light blue

The rich pay a smaller share of taxes under Bush?

Every year, the IRS releases stats on the share of total income tax revenue that comes from the top 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%, and 50% of earners. Here is the batch from the IRS website up to the year 2005 (long after the Bush tax cuts were passed).

The relevant part is the section beginning at line 154, titled "Total income tax share (percentage)." If you compare the year 2005 to the year 2000, just before Bush took office, you get these results:

1. The top 1% of income earners pay 39% of all federal income taxes - UP from 37% in 2000.

2. The top 5% pay 59% of all income taxes - UP from 56% in 2000.

3. The top 10% pay 70% of all income taxes - UP from 67% in 2000.

4. The top 25% pay 86% of all income taxes - UP from 84% in 2000.