As Media Matters has regularly noted in the past few weeks, Fox's ethical problem of continuing to employ Sarah Palin as a contributor has intensified as the network continues to insist on treating her as a potential candidate for president. While Fox took a safer route with former contributors Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich by suspending them once their candidacies became more apparent, it has issued multiple statements confirming that Palin is still an employee. Given the discrepancy in treatment, a reasonable conclusion to draw is that Fox News doesn't consider Palin to be a serious candidate.

So why do they keep promoting her as one?

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade further muddied the waters today during the show's weekly liberal-bias whine session with the head of the Media Research Council, Brent Bozell. Today, as usual, the crew invented more media bias against Palin. But Kilmeade's reaction was, by far, the most revealing. Kilmeade led into a montage meant to show news networks “marginalizing” Palin by complaining that ABC News talked about Palin in a story about “sideshow” candidates. Kilmeade reacted by saying, “Talking about Sarah Palin as a sideshow candidate. Since when?” while Doocy agreed that the “mainstream media has been marginalizing Governor Sarah Palin.” Watch:

Given that Fox still keeps Palin on the payroll, shouldn't her co-workers be complaining that Palin is being treated as a candidate at all?