Is Wall Street Journal's Palin coverage fair and balanced?

[Joanne98]

WSJ Magazine has a story on Sarah Palin's exercise of choice, running. It's interesting that the story must have had a four month lead time -- well before John McCain chose her as his VP candidate. The piece paints her as someone who ran five to seven miles a day before she became pregnant, at which point she did aerobics. Sounds healthy to me.

But it's McCain's health we have to worry about. Now it's come to light that although Palin could be a heartbeat away from the presidency, she doesn't know what Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) are. CBS News reports Palin said that they "have become too big for the taxpayers." But the taxpayers never owned them or paid taxes to support them. Thanks to Hank Paulson, we may spend as much as $800 billion of taxpayer money bailing them out. So if Palin is going to be president -- assuming 72-year-old John McCain needs to step down -- someone better get her up to speed on what's going on outside of Wasilla.

And aside from the glowing fitness report, there's some bad news about Palin. She has tried to "cover up investigations of her firing of a public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called 'October surprise' that would produce embarrassing information about her on the eve of the election," according to Capitol Hill Blue.

She used Alaska money for personal expenses. CBS News reports that she "has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a 'per diem' allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife."

Palin took over 6,000-citizen Wasilla, Alaska, which had no debt at all, and left it with $22 million for a money-losing sports complex. And she and her daughter both got pregnant before getting married (although, to be fair, her 17-year-old daughter is still not married). So much for abstinence.

Maybe WSJ Magazine can balance the ledger by doing a puff piece on Democratic VP candidate, Joe Biden. But I wouldn't run to my newsstand to look for it.

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/09/09/is-wall-street-journals-palin-coverage-fair-and-balanced/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. My boss is an attorney who reads the WSJ religiously eveyr day.

He said he wasn't at all surprised by her selection as VP as the Paper had been mentioning her name for a while now. If anything, Murdoch is consistent.