The media and its selective gotcha moments

Why do conservatives feel there's a media double-standard regarding John McCain and Sarah Palin compared to anyone on the Democratic ticket? In an interview with CNN's John Roberts, Hugh Hewitt lays it out as well as I've heard:



I especially liked how he turned the tables on Roberts regarding Palin's sources of information, and it was clear to me that Roberts knew he got thumped and wanted to move on as quickly as possible.

Also telling was Hewitt's comparison of Joe Biden's gaffes to any similar statement by Palin. In this case, it was Biden's statement that President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to the American people via television at the beginning of the Great Depression, a statement that was factually untrue because (1) FDR wasn't president until 1932; and (2) Television wasn't available for such a format until the mid-1930s.

CNN's Roberts defended his network by saying that CNN mentioned that gaffe, but Hewitt responded:

John, it's not about mention. It's about the emphasis and the repetition. If Sarah Palin had said that FDR spoke on television as president in 1929, do you doubt for a moment, honestly, that it would have led every newspaper in America and would have dominated every media broadcast for three days?

And you know the answer to that rhetorical question.