In a letter-to-the-editor from Baghdad, Lt. Col. Chuck Workman asked: "What's up with your news coverage of Sarah Palin?" The editors were accused of making "an effort to cut and paste left-leaning stories [about her] that have been proven inaccurate." No examples were given. Finally, the letter asked, "What about Joe Biden?" implying that he was getting a free ride.

I checked back into every issue of Stripes from the one on Aug. 30 that reported her appointment  as Republican vice presidential contender by John McCain, to that of Sept. 23.  I don't know whether you'd characterize coverage of Biden, relative to that of Palin, as a free ride. It's been more like a non-ride. 

The Democratic vice presidential nominee had only two major stories or columns, and four brief ones, published about him in Stripes all that time. That compares with Palin's coverage -- are you ready? -- of 22 lengthy stories or columns and 10 brief ones. The ratio of photos of the two was roughly the same. Whether Biden would beef about the paucity of coverage, or be thankful that all the heat is turned to Palin, is not known.

So much for the numbers. What about the charge that Palin has been taking a beating from leftists in Stripes? I really didn't find that was the case. There were some stories -- all very brief ones -- dealing with an investigation into her handling of an official's firing in Alaska, her husband's refusal to testify to Alaskan probers, and the hacking of her e-mail. The longer spot news stories about her seemed to be neutral, and on the op-ed pages, every time there was a disparaging column about her there was an adjacent one in her favor. On two days, Sept. 8 and Sept. 22,  controversial columnists Arianna Huffington and Ann Coulter squared off on the subject of Sarah Palin. On another day, Sept. 12, two other op-ed page contributors did so. There was a tongue-in-cheek column about the names of Palin's kids, and another about hockey and soccer moms, but they did not strike me as insulting.

All the coverage has been from syndicated sources and wire services, and everybody knows there's been a flood of it in the national media and in political circles since the "Palin phenomenon" shook up the election campaign.

Biden has been only nearly invisible. In the Aug. 31 issue, Coulter and Huffington debated his virtues, or absence thereof. (Coulter called him a liar.) He could have taken a few more hits that for some reason didn't materialize. On Sept. 19 there was a story reporting his statement that it is the patriotic duty of wealthier Americans to pay elevated taxes, but the Republicans' ridiculing of that exhortation was not mentioned. I also didn't see stories other publications had about Biden's tight connection to some lobbyists, or about his description of his own party's ad deriding McCain's age as "terrible."

These were minor controversies, and I don't think they support a contention that the coverage has been skewed against Palin and the Republicans. In fact, going through three and a half weeks' worth of Stripes issues permitted an assessment of Stripes' coverage of the campaign in general. It looked pretty even to me. The "Palin phenomenon" is what it is, and this paper was mirroring what so many other media outlets in America were serving up to their readers and viewers.Now, of course, there's bigger news abroad in the land.