Earlier today, I noted that over at Swampland, Time's Michael Scherer posted a snide denunciation of Obama aide Robert Gibbs for making what Scherer claimed was a joke about John McCain's age, even though Gibbs didn't mention McCain's age at all. That was the second such post from Scherer in the past few weeks.

But, as several Swampland readers have pointed out in comments on Scherer's post, Sarah Palin has been making comments that could much more easily be seen as jokes about Joe Biden's age. Just yesterday, Palin said of Biden: “I've never met him before, but I've been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in like second grade.” Scherer's Time colleague Mark Halperin described that as an “age swipe.” At the very least, it's a more direct reference to age than Gibbs' statement that McCain “zig-zags.” And Sarah Palin isn't just a campaign aide; she's the Republican nominee for Vice President.

And yet Michael Scherer has not written an angry post denouncing Sarah Palin or suggesting that her comments might cost McCain votes in Florida.

That's about as clear as double-standards come.

And it comes on the heels of his embarrassingly wrong attack on Barack Obama (and defense of John McCain.)