James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal points out that the mainstream media has become fixated on “fact-checking” this election season. Unfortunately, he says, that fixation is just a ruse to insert opinion into news articles to rebut any attacks on Barack Obama.

There’s a good example in your News & Observer this morning. In a story on Sarah Palin’s appearance in Greenville, NC, yesterday, reporter Barbara Barrett includes a lengthy parenthetical “fact-check” in the body of her story. She cites FactCheck.org as an unbiased arbiter, the same FactCheck.org funded by the Annenberg Foundation, the same folks who funded Obama and Bill Ayers’ efforts to “reform” education in Chicago.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a lengthy rebuttal of an Obama assertion in a story, say, such as when Obama was alleging that John McCain wanted to stay at war with Iraq for 100 years? Or how about a fact-check of the notion that President Bush “lied” about WMD? I don’t recall long parentheticals in those instances.

Because there weren’t any.