Zeituni Onyango

CNN has displayed a double standard in its coverage of the difficulties involving the extended family of Sarah Palin versus that of President Barack Obama. Two programs on the network on Thursday evening used multiple soap opera references to describe recent occurrences in the “Palin family saga.” This contrasts with two incidents involving the aunt and half-brother of the president, which have received minimal coverage from the network.

Anchor Roland Martin began the soap opera imagery in his promo for a segment about Palin on the No Bias, No Bull program: “Folks, talk about ‘The Young and the Restless’ -- these days Governor Sarah Palin must be feeling like she’s living in a soap opera. It’s everything from her daughter’s unplanned pregnancy, to a family member ending up behind bars, and it’s not over yet. We’ll catch you up with all the real-life Palin family drama.” After a commercial break, a CNN graphic referenced another daytime TV title at the beginning of the segment: “Palin: The Days of Her Lives.” The anchor also used a similar line, speaking of the “days of the Palin lives.”

Once again it is the British newspapers that are performing the legwork that the American media oten neglects to do. In this case, it was the UK Times that tracked down Barack Obama's "Auntie Zeituni," not the "evil" Republicans as many Democrats are alleging. This is the story,  by Ben MacIntyre  and James Bone, of how they found Obama's aunt (emphasis mine):

The trail that led to “Aunt Zeituni”, the relative of Barack Obama who was traced by The Times last week, started with Mr Obama’s memoir, one of the most widely read political autobiographies of all time.

The Democrat campaign has implied that the story might have come from Republican sources – “the American people are ... pretty suspicious of things that are dumped in the marketplace 72 hours before a campaign,” said Mr Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod yesterday.

Sorry, David, but the "nefarious" Republicans were not behind this. Just a British newspaper doing the job that the American media should, but won't, do.

When Katie Couric was trying to pin Sarah Palin down on examples of John McCain having promoted increased government regulation of business, the CBS anchor, after her initial inquiry, posed no fewer than three follow-up questions, even breaking out the old "not to belabor the point" line as she did just that.

But when the man perhaps poised to become the most powerful person on the planet, with the world's most sophisticated communication resources at his fingertips, claims "I haven't been able to get in touch" with his aunt who has been living illegally in this country for over four years—and who resides at a known address in a public housing project in Boston—Couric doesn't bat an eye.  To the contrary, she can be seen nodding in agreement.  And far from asking a follow-up question, such as "have you tried?", Couric tossed Obama a super-slo softball, asking him to describe the thing the McCain campaign has done that's made him angriest.

View video here.