Edwards epilogue: Does the press really vet presidential candidates?

That's the headline from a story on Politico.com...my answer is simply only if they're Republicans. Democratic candidates are given passes on pretty much everything. If they weren't neither Edwards nor Obama would have made it past the first couple of primaries. Mr. Edwards wouldn't have been able to conceal his extramarital affair without the intentional blindness of major media organizations.

Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, said that there isn’t a “simple yes or no” answer when looking at whether Edwards was fully vetted. What news organizations can cover, he said, comes down to a question of resources.

“News organizations just don’t have the horsepower to go out when there’s fields of eight people in each party to do the level of vetting it would take to uncover that,” Lemann said of the Edwards affair.

And with numerous candidates in both parties to cover, it’s not surprising that news organizations largely ignored the report of a “love child” between Edwards and Hunter just a few weeks before the Iowa vote.

Still, simply because the media missed the affair doesn’t mean Edwards wasn’t given scrutiny as a candidate. Throughout 2007, there was a series of reports that undermined the image that Edwards had sought to project by contrasting his populist rhetoric and focus on poverty with the reality of a candidate with hedge fund ties and $400 haircuts.

Mr. Obama's associations with extremists, such as the domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, who were written off as "just some people who lived in the neighborhood". But in his formative years, Mr. Obama had a mentor/disciple relationship from 1971-1979, where he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Frank Marshall Davis, going so far as to get advice on his career path. Then of course there is Anita Dunn, who's heroes are Mao Tse Dung and Mother Theresa...and we can't forget Van Jones, a committed communist who was thrown under the bus when it became know he was a member of a 9/11 "truther" group. Last but not least...the Reverend Jeremiah Wright who's bombastic racist anti-American screeds from his pulpit was ignored until bloggers began reporting what he said.

All of these men and women have been known associates of Barrack Obama for years. None of their backgrounds came out during last presidential campaign, it was only AFTERWARD that their deeds and words came back to haunt them.

On the other hand, the Associated Press detailed 30 reporters to dig into Sarah Palin's past the day after John McCain's choice of a running mate was announced...so you tell me...who was vetted more thoroughly?