Sure, many conservatives say The New York Times is biased against Sarah Palin, but let’s remember the Times editorial published right after John McCain made his choice: “So much for the snickers about Boring McCain. His choice of Sarah Palin enlivens a leaden campaign season. It energizes the Republicans. And for all Americans, not just women, it’s a genuinely historic moment. The verbs of Sarah Palin’s life convey her solidity: worked, earned, raised, ran, won, led. In selecting her, Mr. McCain pays signal tribute to the difficult path pursued by many American women.”

The Times, in its usually fair-minded way, noted that some would say Palin’s selection was merely political, but it then rebutted that criticism: “By choosing a woman who seems untested on the national stage, it will be said that Mr. McCain looks desperate, driven to gamble that the women’s vote will turn into a plus. Maybe, but so what? That has always been the first criterion for running mates: Who will bring the most to the ticket?”

OK, confession time: This was not the initial Times editorial about Sarah Palin. It was the editorial on July 13, 1984, that supported Democratic VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro: Merely trade Ferraro for Palin, and Walter Mondale (that year’s Democratic presidential candidate) for McCain. This year, the Times is repeatedly demanding that Palin “fill in for the voting public the gaping blanks about her record and qualifications to be vice president.” In 1984, as WORLD reader Keith Appell pointed out to me, “the Times made no such demands—but blindly accepted that she was ready.”

Let’s all admit that Palin doesn’t have all the experience one might want, but neither does Barack Obama, and neither did Geraldine Ferraro, who was one of 435 members of the House of Representatives for three terms, and not even a leader. Match that against governing the largest state in the country: If Ferraro’s experience was sufficient, so is Palin’s. On the other hand, the intense questioning of Palin is fair only if Obama, No. 1 on his ticket, receives interrogation at least as hard—and so far he has not.

While we observe the hypocrisy in the gimlet eye of The New York Times, evangelicals also have the opportunity to notice what obscures our own vision. Sometimes we succumb to the impulse to hector other people on how to live their lives; it’s better to note humbly that we’ve found a better way for our own lives, so we hope and pray that others will too. Sometimes we come across not as people of compassion but as politicians making our own power plays.

None of that justifies New York Times arrogance (sure, those reporters have read The Scarlet Letter, so they know how evangelicals think), but self-examination may reveal the major difference between evangelicals and Times secular fundamentalists—and it’s not lipstick. The difference is that all of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking up to God.