I'm a sucker for hack gap arguments. And Brian Beutler -- now back to blogging -- points out, the McCain-invented-the-Blackberry story will never catch on because Democrats don't really have the stomach to repeat it. It's fairly clear that Doug Holtz-Eakin was making a point about McCain's regulatory responsibilities, and though it was amusingly phrased, the best liberals will really be able to do is offer up a bunch of outraged blog posts saying IOKIYAR and bashing the media for treating Al Gore worse than John McCain. When the Right wants the media to cover something, they make the story "conservative outrage over X." When the Left wants the media to cover something, they make the story "liberals outraged over the media not covering X." As such, the media covers the conservative claim because they can't be biased and ignore right wing arguments that they think are stupid. They don't cover the left wing claim because doing so would admit a bias, and a sensitivity to organized criticism, that they don't think they have. Political conflict is a story they'll cover. Media criticism is not.
