The media confirms its double-standard

I've been waiting for something like this to happen -- the emergence of media-friendly personal character scandal about John McCain. It's not that I've been wishing ill-will on McCain -- rather, it's that I wanted to see how the media at large would respond.

And now it has happened, with the revelation -- ironically coming from Newsweek, an MSM staple -- that the McCains were in tax default on one of their properties, their payments delinquent by four years. I haven't watched the TV shows yet today, but I just looked through the print pages of the major newspapers and other than the initial report, there was not a single word, not a single mention, not a single story on the tax default.

Now I beg of you to consider, as Media Matters and debrazza have pointed out, that when John Edwards got a $400 haircut, that fact alone was used as a shorthand to describe his entire campaign.

But when John McCain, who has inveighed against Barack Obama as an elitist, has a tax default on one of his ten (or more) properties, total, complete silence.

It's a double-standard, and it's bad for America.

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In another moment of extreme irony, John McCain today met with Billy Graham as part of his effort to connect with evangelical voters.

The irony centers on something about Billy Graham that you might not know: he is responsible for uttering some of the most anti-Semitic comments that you can imagine, and they were caught on tape -- in the Oval Office of the White House, no less, while speaking to Richard Nixon, who was at the time the President of the United States of America.

Here's a portion of the transcript -- provided by none other than the National Archives. In it, Graham professes the same sort of paranoia about Jews as has been expressed by anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan:

BG: This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain.

RN: You believe that?

BG: Yes, sir.

RN: Oh, boy. So do I. I can't ever say that, but I believe it.

BG: No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something.

Here's more context:

''They're the ones putting out the pornographic stuff,'' Mr. Graham said on the tape, after agreeing with Mr. Nixon that left-wing Jews dominate the news media. The Jewish ''stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain,'' he continued, suggesting that if Mr. Nixon were re-elected, ''then we might be able to do something.''  

Finally, Mr. Graham said that Jews did not know his true feelings about them.

''I go and I keep friends with Mr. Rosenthal at The New York Times and people of that sort, you know,'' he told Mr. Nixon, referring to A. M. Rosenthal, then the newspaper's executive editor. ''And all -- I mean, not all the Jews, but a lot of the Jews are great friends of mine, they swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I'm friendly with Israel. But they don't know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country. And I have no power, no way to handle them, but I would stand up if under proper circumstances.''

Now I'm not looking for a fight about Billy Graham, though I do find it interesting that he apparently was unaware his remarks being recorded. Something tells me those remarks are a truer reflection of his feelings than his public statements.

But the real point that I'm trying to make is this: could you imagine if at this point in the campaign, Barack Obama had sat down with and sought support from an African-American religious figure who had made similar such comments?

Would the media just let it slide with nary a mention of those remarks? Of course they wouldn't.

But today they let it slide, and in the process confirmed their double-standard.

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At this point, the question is whether the double-standard is simply a product of inertia -- which would suggest that the problem is fixable -- or whether there's something more insidious going on, something that won't ever change.

I already have my opinion on which it is. I hope that I'm proven wrong.