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Biden Gets a Pass, but not MSM nor Barney

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In my post Monday on the Vice President and his family’s privacy, I asked him a variety of questions, including, “When, in the 2008 presidential campaign, the media made much of the indiscretions of the daughter of your rival for the second highest office in the land, did you tell them to cool it?“  Should he answer “Yes,” to that or any of the questions I posed, I held he would “have grounds to criticize anyone who would publicize your daughter’s private life.”

Turns out that during the campaign, in reference to the media’s obsession with the daughter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his then-rival for the Vice-Presidency, candidate Biden said that “children are off limits.”  (Thanks to reader Jenny for tracking that down.)

He thus has every grounds to ask the media to lay off his daughter and not publicize her private indiscretions.  The story should die.

But, given his partisan affiliation, the story doesn’t have much legs and won’t make–as well it shouldn’t–the mainstream media.  In this case at least, conservative media should follow their lead.

There is, however, still a story here, not really a new story, but a retelling of one we’ve been hearing over and over again, that of media double standards.  Joe Biden is right, a politician’s children should be off limits.

The MSM ignored his rule when it comes to the private lives of children of Republican politicians.

And Biden’s fellow Democrat Barney Frank explicitly endorsed their snooping into the private life of Palin’s daughter.  That unhappy Democrat is once again exposed as a hypocrite, favoring only investigations into people’s private lives (and other matters) when such investigations can be used to hurt Republicans.

Recalling the media fascination with the stories of the Bush and Palin daughters,  John Hinderaker reminds us that they

. . . were major news stories. Does anyone seriously believe that if there had been a video of Barbara or Jenna Bush snorting cocaine during their father’s administration, the press would have refused to write about it?

It’s nice that our newspapers have decided to respect the privacy of people like a Vice President’s children. It would be even nicer if they extended the same courtesy to members of both parties.

Exactly.

With the media extending a courtesy to a Democrat that it regularly denies to Republicans, we have yet just another piece of evidence proving our point about media bias.

Comments

  2. I posted that here to point out that Obama and Biden never said it was a free for all to attack the other candidate’s kids.
    I am actually a liberal but also fair minded and disagree over issues but agree that going after the politician’s children is wrong. Dragging family through the mud because you hate their policies is a bad, twisted approach. I frequently go onto Democratic Underground. There is plenty of discussion over policies but many posters during the campaign posted cruel, terrible things about Bristol and the other Palin kids. I cannot stand Sarah Palin’s beliefs, she is just too conservative for me but why pick on an innocent teen like Bristol who made a mistake? I never liked Bush but I did like his daughters. They made bad choices but grew out of it, they even wrote a nice note to Malia and Sasha Obama before they left the WH. There was a vocal minority of us that said to be careful posting this crap because what if it happened to Obama or Biden’s kids? How would we feel then?
    Maybe there is a double standard there though I cannot stand the MSM either. CNN is the worst programming ever.
    As supporters of certain politicians or parties we need to do the right thing.
    Many attacked Palin’s hypocrisy over the teen abstinence issue and I suppose some can attack Biden over the drug issue as he has always been a hardliner on punishment for drug use. But the kids? Leave em out of it.