IN WHAT THEY HAVE DONE AND IN WHAT THEY HAVE FAILED TO DO. Sarah Palin complains that the Anchorage Daily News harrassed her with questions about Trig Palin's true birth mother, which led to a story that... was never printed. The Daily News laboriously fact-checks this accusation, and others made privately by the Governor to the paper. This is the very model of what would normally be called media transparency, and acquits the paper well, especially their patient explanation that fact-checking is part of their job, and that the Daily News did not publicly assert a claim that anyone but Sarah Palin bore Trig.

By and large Palin's complaints are, as we say in the lower forty-eight, bullshit. Yet rightwing factota defend them. Hot Air's Allahpundit takes a novel tack: that the Daily News had previously published photos of Sarah Palin looking pregnant and alleged actual-mom Bristol Palin looking unpregnant, and a doctor's letter referring to Palin's pregnancy. So the story, in his estimation, was proven false, and the paper sinned by asking her questions about it -- which would never have entered the public record had not Palin revealed them.

It should not shock us that Allahpundit believes true journalism is about not asking questions, when the questions do not favor his side. After all, many of Hot Air's incurious first impressions have not turned out so well. ("I agree with people in the comments who say that [Ashley Todd's] beating and maiming were political, and obviously so" -- Let's see Dan Rather get away with that!) Rightwing bloggers float insane stories all the time, yet make sinister news of Sarah Palin's complaint that someone asked her a question and accepted her answer. But this is not about a search for truth, but the furtherance of spin. Palin wanted to promote her image as a hate object of the media and, without any genuine cause but with the help of Allahpundit and others, got what she was looking for. Claims of liberal media bias are mostly overblown, but it is observably true that the media will always give a platform to any celebrity who claims victim status.