Just wanted to add some historical context to Jamison's excellent point yesterday about how pundits and reporters dutifully noted that Palin, in her resignation speech, took all sort of cheap shots at the press; insisting journalists “quit making things up.” (She basically called them unprofessional hacks.) This coming from a woman with a deep, rich history of making things up.

Not only didn't many in the press point out that hypocrisy, but journalists have remained mostly mum about Palin's comically weak batch of media criticism. (Here's Phil Bronstein who gives Palin a pass for her press attacks.)

Okay, here's the historical context: Back in 2002 when Al Gore granted an interview with the New York Observer and unloaded on the political press corps, and delivered a far more compelling and articulate critique of the failings of the Beltway press corps, all hell broke loose among talking heads who practically sprinted in front of microphones and keyboards, hoping to be the first to ridicule Gore for having the audacity to call out their shortcomings.

*Time's James Carney called Gore's comments, “abject whining in the face of defeat” and complained that “the whining was excessive.”

*Fox News' Charles Krauthammer called Gore insane: “I'm a psychiatrist. I don't usually practice on camera. But this is the edge of looniness, this idea that there's a vast conspiracy, it sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help.”

*Detroit News columnist Thomas Bray lamented Gore's “sad” “rant.”

*The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes compared Gore to a 9/11 conspiracy theorist: “This is nutty. This is along the lines with you know, President Bush killed Paul Wellstone, and the White House knew before 9/11 that the attacks were going to happen. This is -- I mean, this is conspiratorial stuff.”

*Rush Limbaugh also called Gore insane: “It could just be he's nuts. Tipper Gore's issue is what? Mental health. Right? It could be a closer to home issue than we know.”

*Scripps Howard columnist Dan Thomasson condemned Gore's “posturing and whining.” He also called Gore a “cry baby” and insisted his comments represented “a shop worn, bogus lament from losers.”

BTW, this was the key point Gore made to the New York Observer, which probably stands as one of the most astute media observations from any politician in the last decade:

The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party. Fox News Network, The Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh-there's a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media ... Most of the media [has] been slow to recognize the pervasive impact of this fifth column in their ranks-that is, day after day, injecting the daily Republican talking points into the definition of what's objective as stated by the news media as a whole...

Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game, The Washington Times and the others. And then they'll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they'll start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they've pushed into the zeitgeist. And then pretty soon the mainstream media goes out and disingenuously takes a so-called objective sampling, and lo and behold, these RNC talking points are woven into the fabric of the zeitgeist.

UPDATED: The WSJ John Fund cheers Palin's “media critique,” if that's what you call two semi-coherent sentences uttered by a Republican politician and which reference the press:

Ms. Palin will no doubt have a future as a stump speaker and political commentator in the lower 48, and her media critique certainly will find receptive audiences