Tea Leaves?

Probably every one of us knows what it's like to watch an interview of our favorite political villain and ask "How can you not ask about ?" Sometimes it can get pretty bad and your spouse has to remind you that the people on TV can't really hear you. And so you ask your spouse "But... how could they not ask about it?" This phenomena happens most often during election season when the politicians are taking their usual liberties with reality and the news people look the other way.
Something new has been happening lately during this election cycle. I noticed it shortly after Senator McCain picked Governor Palin as his running mate. The major media markets have been calling his and her bluffs. Not just the markets you would expect, either. Normally bland news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and ABC are fact-checking the McCain-Palin claims.
I think it started with Governor Palin. Her "No thanks" claim for the Bridge to Nowhere has been challenged repeatedly and pretty well run to ground. Her trooper-gate claims are being challenged by ABC. And when Charles Gibson was hand-picked to give the first interview to Governor Palin, he did not give her the softball interview and "deference" the McCain campaign demanded. Now the NY Times is reminding us that while the McCain-Palin campaign has criticized Barack Obama for receiving donations from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, McCain's own campaign manager earned $2 million as president of an advocacy group set up by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations. We've seen the Today Show question why John McCain rails against CEO's who are given golden parachutes while their employees are being laid off while one of his top advisors, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, received a $45 million golden parachute bailout while 20,000 Hewlett-Packard employees were laid off. And the low road approach of the McCain-Palin campaign has been criticized by numerous newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, and even Karl Rove on FOX (though to be fair, Karl Rove also said that the Obama campaign has gone too far).
I take this as a sign that the media outlets are betting on an Obama win. There are some out there who believe that the liberal media are simply trying to ensure that Obama wins, but that doesn't take into account past behavior of letting similar claims slide. Nor does it take into account that major media outlets want to be on good terms with the victor, no matter who it is. That's just good business. There was a real change in the pre-Palin and post-Palin actions of the press. I suspect that the major media players were underwhelmed with the choice and believe that the Obama campaign can overcome her positive aspects to win.