Have the Media Treated Palin and Obama Equally?

So far, the mainstream media's "Sarah Palin e-mail blitz" has exposed nothing noteworthy -- no bombshells, no surprises and certainly no scandals. Earlier today, we reported on Palin's heartwarming e-mail about Trig (one of the more covered tidbits to come from the emails). If anything, the messages collectively paint a favorable picture of the former Alaska governor -- a doting mother, a curious politician, a God-fearing and God-loving woman.

The Telegraph's Tony Harnden goes so far as to say that the emails show a woman who is "...idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane...slightly bemused by the world of politics." Harnden, perhaps, best sums up the entire saga in the following words:

One can only assume that the Left-leaning editors who dispatched teams of reporters to remote Juneau, the Alaskan capital, to pore over the emails in the hope of digging up a scandal are now viewing the result as a rather poor return on their considerable investment.

If anything, Mrs Palin seems likely to emerge from the scrutiny of the 24,000 pages, contained in six boxes and weighing 275 pounds, with her reputation considerably enhanced. As a blogger at Powerline noted, the whole saga might come to be viewed as “an embarrassment for legacy media”.

With the dust poised to settle, some are wondering why the media spent so much time and effort on Palin and very little, comparably, investigating President Obama. Early this morning, Gateway Pundit wrote about the infamous 2008 tape that The L.A. Times purposefully withheld from the American public:

In 2008 The LA Times withheld a video that contained footage of Barack Obama celebrating with a group of Palestinians who were openly hostile towards Israel. Barack Obama reportedly even gave a toast to a former PLO operative, Rashid Khalidi, at this celebration. This was something the LA Times hid from the American public before the election. The media refused to release the video.

Below, watch The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund discuss the differences in the levels of media scrutiny that Palin (no longer a public official) and Obama (the American president) have faced:

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