Where has the laughter gone?

Democrats claim to have a sense of humor and don't all those Dan Quayle jokes prove it? Mona Charen asks: why aren't they laughing at MA Senate candidate Martha (AKA Marsha) Coakley?:

Oh, how different the world would look if Martha Coakley were a Republican! As it is, she gets the sort of gentle rebukes the press reserves for Democrats. Her campaign was too "lackadaisical," we are told. She was "overconfident" and too "buttoned down." Reading and watching the MSM, you wouldn't know that Coakley is a walking minefield. There is now -- and there always has been -- a completely different set of rules for Republicans.

If a Republican candidate in such a high-profile contest put out campaign literature that misspelled the name of her state, it would be worth, let's see, mentions on every Sunday gabfest and two, maybe three, jokes on the late-night shows. Dan Quayle's misspelling is the stuff of legend. Coakley's? Not so much.

When Coakley was challenged in an October debate about her lack of foreign policy credentials, she parried: "I have a sister who lives overseas, and she's been in England and now lives in the Middle East." Hmm. Just a few months ago, Sarah Palin said something similar, and the smart set has not finished laughing yet. Palin didn't say "I can see Russia from my house!" But the Tina Fey parody has replaced the less amusing truth. "Saturday Night Live" can be brilliant. But if Palin's comment was worthy of such mockery, wasn't Coakley's equally so? Just asking.

The woman who would like to sit in the U.S. Senate announced last week that there are no longer any terrorists in Afghanistan. Not since Joe Biden boasted (during the 2008 vice presidential debate) that he had chased Hezbollah from Lebanon have we heard such a loony claim. Where are the titters?

This kind of media hypocrisy is so common that it is easy to forget that we should still be outraged at it.

For more on the MA Senate race, see Michelle Malkin here and here. For the latest polls, see here and here.

PREVIOUSLY, on liberal hypocrisy:
•The UN's global warming advocates vs. their own carbon footprint
•Eco-hypocrite of the day: supermodel Giselle
•The hypocrisy of ACORN and others on minimum wage
•It is outrageous to make Hitler analogies, or not
•Broadcast networks discover a new responsibility to air presidential speeches.
•Saddam's connections to terror change depending on who is president.
•Dems advocate 10-year effort in Iraq until they don't
•The ever-increasing energy use of Al Gore's mansion
•With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming.
•Dems supported enhanced interrogation.
•UN humanitarian hypocrisy
•Poster child hypocrisy
•Edwards' hypocrisy toward the poor
•Liberals bash gays