Even those of us who wholeheartedly support John McCain have to admit it was a bad week for him.  He looked wishy-washy on the AIG deal and fumbled when he said he would fire SEC Chair Christopher Cox.  Jennifer Parker on abcnews.com quickly hit on McCain's "gaffes" and goes so far as to say his missteps this week call into question his foreign policy experience.

So McCain stumbles and it's immediately a huge story, but Barack Obama has had a string of verbal misspeaks and I don't remember ABC thinking that was a big story.  We remember the Obama meltdown at a townhall meeting moments after walking away from a teleprompter.  Obama thought we have 57 states, honored fallen servicemen who were in his audience on Memorial Day, and forgot he was in Kansas City instead of St. Louis during the Democratic Convention.  Barack wouldn't want his daughters "punished with a baby," thinks John McCain is running for George Bush's 4th term, and called a reporter "sweetie." 

Did I mention George Stephanopolous had to remind Obama that he's a Christian instead of a Muslim?

All of this takes me back a few years to Dan Quayle.  The man corrected a child on the spelling of potato (it was written incorrectly on a card given to Quayle that day) and was lampooned endlessly.  The man was called stupid and dumb.  But nary a word about Obama's many verbal slips. 

Is the media afraid to call a black man dumb?  Or do they not want to develop a storyline that may hurt their guy?