Former Clinton Aide Mark Penn On The Media Treatment Of Sarah Palin

I would usually not quote Mark Penn on much of anything, but when even he recognizes the special scrutiny the media is giving Sarah Palin, what essentially amounts to heavy pro-Obama bias, then you know the media has some real issues. Granted he worked for Clinton and may not like the fact that he lost to Obama, but he is still a Democrat admitting that Sarah Palin is getting treated differently. He is still a Democrat, mind you, that knows a thing or two about campaigns and how the media treats candidates.

Mark Penn said, "I think the people themselves saw unfair media coverage of Senator Clinton. I think if you go back, the polls reflected very clearly what 'Saturday Night Live' crystallized in one of their mock debates about what was happening with the press. I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don't do that for all four of the candidates, they're on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems."

Penn went on to say, "I think that the media is doing the kinds of stories on Palin that they're not doing on the other candidates. And that's going to subject them to people concluding that they're giving her a tougher time. Now, the media defense would be, 'Yeah, we looked at these other candidates who have been in public life at an earlier time.' What happened here very clearly is that the controversy over Palin led to 37 million Americans tuning into a vice-presidential speech, something that is unprecedented, because they wanted to see for themselves. This is an election in which the voters are going to decide for themselves. The media has lost credibility with them."


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