Reuters: How about Obama talking points with your news, my pretty?

Reuters runs a story on Sarah Palin's campaign appearance in Clearwater, FL (not far from where I'm sitting, as a matter of fact).

The report notes that Palin continues to hammer Obama on his connection to Bill Ayers. Unlike the CNN segment I highlighted in the previous post, however, this news from Reuters serves little other purpose than to trot out Obama campaign talking points.

With the pressure on, Palin is targeting Obama's judgment and character in speeches that include the unsubstantiated charge that the Illinois senator has close ties to Bill Ayers, a former member of the 1960s-era militant Weather Underground

The group was involved in bombings in the 1960s, when Obama was 8 years old. Obama met him in the 1990s when first starting his political career in Chicago and the two served on a board together. Obama has said he knows Ayers only slightly and has denounced his actions with the Weather Underground.

Close ties to Obama an "unsubstantiated charge"? I guess that depends on how you define "close ties"--but reporter/news analyst/editorialist Jason Szep doesn't go there, not even to establish the depth of the relationship as alleged by Palin. Can you say "hole in the story"?

It gets even better!

"I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," Palin said of Obama at a rally of 5,000 supporters in Florida's heavily Republican city of Clearwater.

Critics say that line is especially pointed because of its potential subtext. Obama would be the first black president and his background, including part of a childhood spent in Indonesia, is different from that of most Americans.

Palin seemed to acknowledge that the race was entering a new, harsher phase. "You are going to have to hang onto your hats because from now until election day it may get kind of rough," the 44-year-old self-described "hockey mom" said.

The second paragraph is unbelievable, recycling as it does the notion that emphasizing Obama's association with political radicals is somehow racist (see the Obama campaign arm known as the Associated Press for more on that).

The third paragraph artfully uses Palin's statement to the effect that the campaigning will be rough to underscore the (unsubstantiated) racism charge.

The mask is off. There is no "objective" mainstream media any longer. The face of the American press is completing a transformation that started in the 1970s.