It’s not your imagination: the Center for Media and Public Affairs has been keeping track, and late-night comics ridicule John McCain and Sarah Palin seven times as often as Barack Obama and Joe Biden:
The Center for Media and Public Affairs, a media analysis group, kept a tally of jokes told about the presidential contenders on the “Late Show” and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” in the five weeks after McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate and vaulted the little-known Alaska governor into the national spotlight.
The total: Republicans, 286. Democrats, 42.
“Generally the Republicans get targeted much more often than Democrats, but this election is driving it off the charts,” said CMPA Executive Director Donald Rieck.
Letterman and Leno told 106 jokes about McCain and 180 about Palin in the 25 shows that aired between Aug. 29, when McCain chose her, and Oct. 2, the date of the vice presidential debate.
Barack Obama, who may be Leno’s guest next week, was targeted only 26 times — barely once a night. His gaffe-prone running mate, Joe Biden, who is scheduled to appear on Leno Thursday night, was hit only 16 times, not even one-tenth the number of jokes told about Palin over the five-week period.
And that’s Leno and Letterman; one can only imagine the disproportion if we add “comics” like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Democrats have gone around the bend, carried away with hate to a degree that we haven’t seen in this country since the 1850s and 1860s. This attack on a middle-aged lady with a McCain sign by a New York man, now charged with criminal assault, is one of many such stories. These are sad times, and I’m afraid the bottom is still nowhere in sight.
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