"...Kernell was politically opposed to Palin."

Bristol Palin says e-mail hack led to scary calls

This got a good bit of play when it actually happened, but kind of fell off the radar pretty quickly. I hadn't even been aware the trial was in progress now until I saw this headline, it's just not the kind of thing I obsess over. You just accept that there are jerks operating on the periphery of politics and get on with your life. The only reason I'm bringing it up at all isn't because of the case itself, but because of how it's being presented.

Conservatives frequently complain about liberal bias in the press and here's a perfect illustration. The AP is supposed to be a straight news agency but it's interesting what Bill Poovey doesn't think we need to know about this case. We learn that David Kernell is a 22-year-old former college student. We learn that he majored in economics. And although we learn that he was politically opposed to Palin, his college roommate says Kernell never said anything about wanting to hurt Palin or McCain. Now without heading for google, does everybody remember (assuming you ever saw it in the news to begin with) what we don't learn from Poovey about Kernell?

Do you think that maybe if Poovey had mentioned that the defendant's father is a democratic state representative, he wouldn't have had to tell us that he was politically opposed to Palin? Do you think that maybe if this case involved the child of a republican state representative posting the contents of Joe Biden's personal e-mail account on the web Poovey wouldn't be quite so reticent to inform his readers about the accused lineage?

Bias isn't always about what you say and do, it's also about what you choose to not say and do. All of us - not just conservatives - should be disappointed in the political press when they decline to pass along the whole story in hopes that the public will be trusting enough not to look into what they're not telling us.