Following Jonah Goldberg's lead, Kristol claims the “mainstream media” have been wildly unfair to Sarah Palin. That they're panicked about her. They “disdain” and “dislike” her.

Number of media examples Kristol cites to prove his point? Zero.

As Goldberg has consistently illustrated, being a (lazy) conservative media critic means never having to prove a thing. Nice work if you can get it.

UPDATE: Honestly, Kristol's lack of media research is the least of his problems in this column, in which he makes a direct comparison between Palin's current situation and Barack Obama's in 2005.

The media establishment didn't protest much about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. He gave a good speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, was elected to the Senate that fall, and immediately started running for president. He didn't accomplish much in his four years in the Senate (nor could he have been expected to). But that didn't seem to hurt his standing. Isn't Palin about as well positioned for the GOP 2012 nomination as Obama was in 2005 for the 2008 Democratic one?

Right. Except last time I checked, Obama didn't abruptly quit his senate seat for vague reasons. But hey, other than that, Kristol's comparison's a perfect one.