As media pounces on Obama relationships, McCain gets a pass

Rawstory:

Mastermind of Nixon's Watergate break-in calls McCain an 'old friend'

It's a classic pattern in politics, isn't it? A young, fresh, charismatic, upstart candidate bursts onto the campaign trail to glowing reviews from the press that covers him only to have those same reporters and pundits aim their BB guns toward his rising balloon just as it's ready to crest the horizon.

While that arc seems to be playing out now for Barack Obama, whose faced relentless recrimination over his associations with controversial pastors and former radicals in recent weeks, the media largely let John McCain float by unscathed.

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman explores McCain's "own radical friend."