Ditch the Double Standard for Palin, McCain

The McCain camp's insistence that Sarah Palin not submit to questioning until the media shows "respect and deference" is a brazen double standard bound to raise voter eyebrows, Tim Rutten writes in the Los Angeles Times. She is certainly due respect, Rutten writes, but it is hard to justify the media showing more deference to the governor of Alaska than to the president.

The double standard is clearest in GOP calls to keep Palin's religious affiliations off limits, argues Rutten. Barack Obama's church has been put under the microscope, Rutten notes, and Palin's church's links to Jews for Jesus and the "pray the gay away" movement deserve similar scrutiny. "Palin, apparently, operates in a parallel political universe—or at least McCain's handlers would like to see that she does," Ruten writes.
(More Sarah Palin stories.)