Contrast this with the level of interest that reporters have shown in Barack Obama’s lack of a paper trail during the 2008 campaign and afterwards. No, I’m not talking about the issue of his birth certificate. I am thinking of his college records and papers; his application to the Illinois bar to become a lawyer; his complete list of clients while he was in private practice; and his records from his service in the Illinois State Senate. Almost none of this has been released in whole or in part by Mr. Obama, and requests have been airily dismissed…

Just before the 2008 election, Mark Halperin, an editor-at-large for Time magazine and co-author of the campaign classic “Game Change,” was one of several speakers at a conference sponsored by Time and CNN in New York. During a panel discussion, Mr. Halperin was asked if the media had been too soft on Mr. Obama. To the surprise of the largely liberal audience, his answer was yes. He went on to say that through the subtle choice of which stories to cover and where to deploy investigative resources, the national media had handed Mr. Obama “hundreds of millions in free publicity.”

Mr. Halperin attributed the positive coverage in part to the historic nature of Mr. Obama’s candidacy. But he also noted that only a few hands had gone up in the crowded room when the audience had been asked how many had voted for George W. Bush. “I find it curious that far more time and media energy has been spent on Sarah Palin’s time in Wasilla, Alaska’s city government in the last eight weeks than in looking at Barack Obama’s dozen years in Chicago politics and government over the last 18 months of his candidacy,” he noted dryly. And Ms. Palin was only running for vice president.