The liberal media have launched an offensive against McCain's vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin.  The New York Times suggested Palin wasn't properly vetted.  ABC News' Matt Dowd is saying that Republican delegates are turning on Palin.  I doubt that very much–it appears that just the opposite is happening–Republicans are rallying around Palin the face of this controversy contrived by the liberal media.

Let's take a look at the left's bill of particulars against Sarah Palin, gleaned from The New York Times:

1)  Her seventeen year-old daughter is pregnant. 

That this is being dwelled on by the media is shameful.  It is a nonstory, as Not WRIGHT for America covered earlier and even Obama says. 

2)  Palin's husband was arrested for DUI 22 years ago. 

That this is brought up is a joke–how many members of Congress have gotten DUIs?  And this happened when Mr. Palin was in his early twenties.

3)  Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party for two years in the mid-90's, and they support a vote on whether Alaska should secede from the Union. 

Alaska ain't New York City, and the politics there are much different than they are in the lower 48.  I can only imagine how those who are truly living on the Last Frontier feel about being bossed around by people like Nancy Pelosi.  But regardless, a two year membership in a party with a goofy secessionist plank is going to generate a collective yawn from the American public.

4)  Palin has hired a private lawyer to defend her "in an Alaska legislative ethics investigation into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner."  (That quote from the New York Times.)

It's funny, I don't remember the media making a big deal of it the countless times the Clintons hired private counsel to defend them in various scandals.  And this also appears to be erroneous–the state hired the lawyer, not Palin.

Regardless, on the surface this last one is the most serious charge against Palin, but it falls apart even under mild scrutiny.

The essence of this matter is that Palin's staff is alleged to have pressured Alaska's Department of Public Safety Commissioner to fire a state trooper, and ultimately fired the Public Safety Commissioner when he did not do so.  This state trooper was involved in a nasty custody fight with the Governor's sister.

In the first instance this "ethics" investigation is being led by Senator Hollis French, a Democrat and a Massachusetts born, Cornell educated lawyer who advocates socialized medicine.  In other words, a liberal. 

The other thing you won't get from the liberal media is that this Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was appointed by Palin and according to the Anchorage Daily News, "she had a right to fire him for any reason."  This will shock you, but that important detail was left out of the Times story.  But if this is an investigation into whether Palin abused her power by firing Monegan, as the Times says, the investigation should be over already–she had the legal right to do what she did.  Hollis French, as a liberal lawyer, should know this. That the investigation continues shows that it is nothing but a partisan witch hunt.

This sounds just like the selective outrage at Bush's dismissal of a handful of US Attorneys when the media barely made a peep when Bill Clinton fired every sitting US Attorney.

And here's another little tidbit that The New York Times does not want you to know about, and in fact left out of their story–the trooper who Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan refused to fire threatened to kill Governor Palin's father if he got a lawyer for his daughter in the custody fight.  And then the trooper lied about this in an internal investigation.

This "ethics" witch hunt reflects poorly on the liberal lawyer who is leading it, and the liberal, cheerleading media, not Palin.

It's time for McCain to stand up and denounce this anti-Palin garbage dump.  All he needs to say is that it has been clear from the start that the media are in love with Obama, and their anti-Palin feeding frenzy is just a part of their efforts to elect him.  And Palin's 17 year-old daughter Bristol is nothing but collateral damage to the liberal media, who have pulled out all the stops for Obama.

And it's time for conservatives to rally around Palin.  McCain could have picked Mother Theresa and the liberal media still would have found a way to savage her.