From a Salon article in Salon on June 25, 1998, pointed out that while President Clinton was being excoriated by the press, John McCain’s biggest gaffes and mean-spirited attacks on others were generally overlooked by the McCain-loving media.

What makes this particular joke shameful is that he was attacking a 13-year-old girl! At a time when most young girls are trying to figure out who they are and having body image issues, John McCain told his Republican friends at a Senate Fund-Raiser that Chelse Clinton was ugly, “because Janet Reno was her father”!

Did John McCain suffer for this terrible remark? No. The adoring media swept the story under the table.

During the last few months, many established media outlets have decided to report innuendo and rumor about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, as long as they have a source they can cite (at least anonymously), or another media player has reported the same.

But this new standard in the practice of journalism seemingly does not extend to other political figures, at least not media darlings like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Earlier this month, at a Republican Senate fund-raiser, McCain told a downright nasty joke making fun of Janet Reno, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton.

The fact that McCain had made the tasteless joke was reported in major newspapers, as was the vain attempt by his press secretary to initially deny what McCain had done. But in several major newspapers, the joke itself was kept a secret. When McCain subsequently apologized to President Clinton, the Washington Post, in its personality section, noted the apology but said the joke “was too vicious to print.”

The Los Angeles Times, in its Life & Style section, provided an oblique rendering of the joke that did not fully convey its ugliness. When Maureen Dowd penned a column in the New York Times about the joke, she wrote that McCain “is so revered by the press that his disgusting jape was largely nudged under the rug.” But Dowd chose not to relay the joke, either.

The joke did appear in McCain’s hometown paper, the Arizona Republic, and the Associated Press did report the joke in full, so everyone in the press had access to McCain’s words. But by censoring themselves, the Post, the Times and others helped McCain deflect flak and preserved his status as a Republican presidential contender.

Salon feels its readers deserve the unadulterated truth. Though no tape of McCain’s quip has yet emerged, this is what he reportedly said:

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno.”

…The former Vietnam POW should escape this matter without serious political harm. In the inevitable magazine profiles of McCain that will be written, there will no doubt be the perfunctory line: “McCain’s tendency to speak too freely was proven when he made a distasteful joke at a fund-raiser about the first family and then had to apologize to the president.”

But the joke revealed more than a mean streak in a man who would be president. It also exposed how the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times play favorites when reporting the foibles of our leading politicians.

Salon Newsreal | A joke too bad to print?.