Hey Tamar,

>Did her belonging to the AIP make it to MSM or only to blogs? I don't actually recall. I do find one source that says that is was _officials_ of the AIP who said she was a member, so the story clearly isn't entirely nonsense. Even if she wasn't registered in the party, she has been involved with them (including attending two conventions and recording a message for one as governor).
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I believe that the AIP claim was on MSNBC's frontpage on the day after her speech; as were two other disparaging articles/commentaries. Subsequently the GOP provided proof, which I honestly have not seen but satisfied the media, that she's been a Republican for 20+ years.

>You keep saying there's stuff to look at, but you don't give a clue what it would be. He's been in the national public eye for 4 years, and fairly visible in Illinois for a decade before that. Given how much passion he arouses (on both sides), don't you think that if there were something there, someone (MSM, right-wing bloggers, National Enquirer, ...) would have come up with some credible information by now? Instead, it's all hints and insinuations and guilt by association.
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Tamar, I don't pretend to understand what the media outlets think is important and what isn't. I would think that Obama's long association with some rather questionable figures which could easily be construed as poor judgement would be far more germane to the election than Palin's 6 years of matriculation 20 years ago. It is easy to see why conservatives and a lot of independents paint the media as biased because they sure act that way.

But there may be another angle on this: Perhaps they're afraid to go negative on Obama because of the race issue. But then you'd have to infer that they would not go negative on Palin because of her gender and I'm left throwing my hands in the air again, confused.

Admit this: If McCain had been a member of ...say....the PTL 700 Club for 20 years then the media would be stumbling all over themselves insinuating he was a puppet controlled by evangelicals. Yet Obama can belong to a black separatist church for 20 years and hardly any objective news source thinks it's newsworthy.

Another thing perplexing: Purported reputable left-leaning commentators are saying things about Palin that would get a right-wing commentator fired. And that's OK. The rule seems to be if you're a liberal woman that's OK and don't you dare question gender but if you're a Republican woman then it's OK to make ridiculous statements like she can't be VP because she has 5 kids. So, the message is it's OK to be a sexist pig as long as you're a liberal sexist pig.