Wow. In all the years I’ve reported on politics and political campaigns, this one stands out as wild – not only for the surprises presented by candidates, but for the lack of balance exhibited by many in the media in reporting on those surprises. The most recent chapter of imbalance surrounds Alaska Governor Sara Palin as Senator John McCain’s running mate for Vice President.

No sooner had Senator McCain announced Governor Palin as his Vice Presidential choice, the attacks began. They said, unlike the democrats’ Vice Presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden and his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Governor Palin didn’t understand foreign relations issues. They said she wasn’t ready for such a high office – “too inexperienced”.

Let’s look at her foreign affairs judgment compared with Senator Joseph Biden’s. Yes, Biden chairs the Foreign Relations Committee; but, Israel’s Army Radio reported this week of a past “closed door meeting” Biden had with Israeli officials where he told the Israelis that “economic sanctions would be futile against Iran” and went on to add that “Israel will have to reconcile itself with the nuclearization of Iran.”

Is this the kind of judgment the free world wants? Does Biden forget that Iran’s lunatic leader has vowed to wipe Israel off the map?
Perhaps Governor Palin’s common sense is the better route.
Even after Governor Palin’s incredible speech to the Republican convention, the attacks continued. She was called “strident”, “sarcastic”, “shrill”, – and, from the Obama campaign, just a “small town Mayor”. Some national pundits even suggested that old sexist bromide: Governor Palin should be staying at home with her children and, as a mother of children; the job would be too much for her. After listening to her rousing speech, the pundits and reporters focused on the fact that she “worked with a speech writer” – ignoring the fact that Obama, Biden and every other political candidate works with speech writers—and Obama and Biden were even found plagiarizing the words and works of others.

Let’s look at the attacks on Governor Palin in the light of history. Let’s look at the claim that she was strident and shrill. It seems to be a criticism singularly held for women. It was used against Hillary Clinton. It was used against England’s Margaret Thatcher. And, regarding the sexist claims that, as a mother, she was ill equipped to focus on the job, the same was thrown at Margaret Thatcher when that great lady first ran for high office. History shows the pundits were wrong in their sexism and the world is better off for her service.

Governor Palin answered the Obama camp’s condescension of her “small town” by explaining the difference between Obama as a “community organizer” and a “small town mayor” by saying “a Mayor has to make decisions”. Good comment. But even that has been taken apart by a Barack-backing Chicago newspaper columnist who called it racist “putting small town people against the rest of us.” Really, this is not made up, it’s really written and allowed to see print in a daily newspaper.

Pundits are now accusing the McCain-Palin camp of declaring war on the media.

I think it’s the other way around. John McCain repeatedly asked Barack Obama to meet and debate anytime, anywhere. Obama agreed and then refused to hold such face-to-face debates, with the exception of meeting on the 4th of July when no one would be watching.

Where was the critical media?

John McCain stated that he would limit himself to public financing in the presidential campaign. Barack Obama agreed, but reneged on the agreement when he saw he could raise more money. Where was the media criticism?

The pundits are calling for full investigations into Governor Palin’s past, but where were they in looking into Senator Obama’s past connections with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, or convicted developer/fundraiser Tony Rezko and all the failed developments he placed in Obama’s district while Obama served in the Illinois Senate?

When did they demand probes into Barack Obama’s ties – and $800,000 campaign payments—to the far-left Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN, a group accused of hiring forgery convicts, offering gifts to sign up voters, falsifying driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, and other information on fraudulent voter registration cards. Where are the calls for investigations from reporters and columnists? And why weren’t they calling for those investigations months ago?

One day after Governor Sara Palin gave her remarkable address to the convention, national reporters were demanding that she appear on television news shows, do one-on-one interviews, give full access to the press. Did they ask Senator Biden to do the same the day after he spoke in Denver?

This campaign year stands out as wild – with too many members of the media lost in the forest of blatant bias. Has the noble fourth estate now joined the nominating wing of the Democratic Party?

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Mary Laney is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer