But WHY?

Kevin Drum asks the important question: Why do Teabagger conservatives like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann get a free pass from the media when they spout the most insane (and inane) things on the campaign trail?

I'm not quite sure what the left-wing equivalent of this would be, but it would be something along the lines of Hillary Clinton writing a book that proposed repealing the 2nd Amendment and adding one that banned hate speech; limiting defense spending to 2% of GDP; raising the top marginal tax rate back to 90% on millionaires and 100% on anything above, say, $10 million; instituting British-style national healthcare; and spending half a trillion dollars on new programs for universal preschool, two-year paid leaves for new parents, and an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour. But in real life, Dennis Kucinich wouldn't support a platform like this, let alone a frontrunner for the presidential nomination. And if one did, they'd be instantly tarred as an insane nutball and would never see the business end of a TV camera again.

But when Republicans say the mirror image of stuff like this, it just gets a shrug. Sure, Perry apparently wants to roll things back to about 1900 or so. But hey — it's just a way of firing up the troops. Nothing to be taken seriously.

But why not?

Because the mainstream media is a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America, that's why.