James Edmund Pennington at American Thinker today (bold emphasis mine):
Where were the media articles, digging into the earliest days of Barack Obama's political origins in the corrupt Chicago machine and the far left fever swamps of Hyde Park? Where were the articles explaining Obama's long, close and deep connection to unreformed Marxist revolutionary and proud domestic terrorist Bill Ayers?
Where was the in-depth series on how Obama came to his first prominent job in 1995 as Chair of Ayers' $100 Million plus Annenberg Challenge grant? Just what was it about Obama's views that made Obama attractive Ayers, so attractive that Ayers not only picked Obama to chair his grant, but gave Obama's kick-off party for the Illinois state senate in 1996?
Where were (are?) the articles on just how closely these two men worked together for at least four years (1995-2005)? On who received the grant money, what they did with it and to what effect?
And, even more crucially, where are the deep and nuanced media analyses of Ayres' views -- about education and other matters -- and how congruent Obama's are with his?
Where were the probing analyses of Obama's improbable claimed shock at his minister's racist and hate-filled ravings? Where were the mainstream media's interviews of parishioners (and others) in Chicago who could affirm or contradict that Obama was asleep during the Reverend's worst rants? Or the reverse -- that Obama in fact agreed with some or all of them?.....
Measuring whether a candidate is in fact who he/she claims to be by digging into the candidate's record is the core function of the media in our electoral democracy.
The complaint, rather, is that the media never for a moment, let alone a week, scrutinized Barack Obama's origins in Chicago at all, let alone to the extent it already has Sarah Palin's in Alaska. And Obama wants to be President on January 20. At least Governor Palin expects to wait several years after the election before the possibility of sitting at the big desk arises.
McCain/Palin supporters, I am certain, would take the following bargain from the mainstream media in a heartbeat:
Decide how many reporters, smut-mongers, detectives and investigators you intend to send to Alaska in an effort to discredit Governor Palin. Then take that number --be it 20, 200 or 2000 -- divide in half, and send one battalion to Chicago to find out how Obama rose from total obscurity to great heights in record time, who his closest associates were, what portion of those associates' beliefs he shares, and what he really believes.
In short, send a team to Chicago to find out and tell us who Barack Obama is
