It’s standard operating procedure, and fully expected by this time, but even so it’s startling, even mind-boggling, how the media continues to so bald-facedly cover for McCain. Even as the media lays focus on Obama for swapping Auschwitz for Buchenwald–once (not three times, like McCain did with Sunni and Shiite)–the same media is paying only 1/4 as much attention (18 stories for the Gramm scandal, 78 for Obama’s statement) to the fact that McCain’s chief economic advisor was a paid lobbyist for a Swiss bank, actively lobbying Congress on subprime mortgage legislation for UBS while advising McCain on subprime mortgage bailout policy. A bank which the advisor still works for, a bank which is advising its banking team not to travel to the U.S. for fear of being indicted. Josh Marshall put it this way:

Many of the lobbying connections the press has dug up on McCain have been embarassing. But I’m not sure any have really had teeth until this one. After all, how much does the average voter care that Charlie Black represented a lot of foreign dictators? A stench, yes? But finding out that McCain had a major subprime lender bank lobbyist whispering in his ear when McCain told the public that it was basically tough luck if they lost their houses?

Few of the stories now out there on McCain and UBS are by any recognizable news outlet–the biggest is MSNBC, which broke the story, while almost all the big media sources cover the Obama story. For the most part, the MSM is simply burying the McCain scandal.

The lobbyist story is way bigger than a one-time slip–so why the heavy disparity in reporting?