On Saturday the LA Times' Dan Morain produced what charitably can be described as a hit piece on Barack Obama. The ostensible point was summed up in the article's title, "Obama's wealth has skyrocketed". Here is the lede:

Barack Obama's wealth has more than doubled during his presidential campaign -- and has shot up tenfold since he entered the U.S. Senate three years ago, his financial disclosure filed Friday shows.

No doubt true - but hardly surprising given that he's sold many books since 2004 and no longer draws a modest Illinois Senate salary. Why not just say how much Obama is worth and leave aside the nearly meaningless rate of increase since 2004? Because the McCains' and Clintons' vastly higher wealth, both in 2004 and now, would make Obama's look pretty modest by comparison. In fact, the reader can't interpret the rate of increase for Obama because Morain doesn't indicate the rate at which the McCains', Clintons', or other Senators' assets increased.

The point of the exercise is to help portray Obama as an "elitist" who's getting above his station. Here's how the article concludes:

Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney said that although there were no questions of conflict related to Obama's writings, his wealth could present him with a political problem "because of the issue of elitism," a charge he has sought to fend off during his campaign.

"With millions in the bank, it is a little easier to make that charge stick," Pitney said. But, citing Cindy McCain's wealth, he added, "John McCain is probably not the best messenger."

Indeed, since Obama is the least wealthy of the three leading candidates, the charge actually is preposterous. Morain doesn't care to dwell upon that, however. Neither does he tell us that Pitney, the only person quoted in the article, is a Republican political analyst.

I wrote to Morain asking why he quoted only a Republican on Obama's wealth, and why he failed to identify him as a Republican. Here's the sum total of Morain's response:

Thanks for your note. I thought Pitney's comment was even-handed and thoughtful.

Republicans and their mouthpieces in the traditional media will give us many more hatchet jobs on Obama's alleged "elitism". They've already been trained to frame the candidate as an elitist. No need to take my word for it. Check out the photo-montage used by Time in its one-sentence link to the Morain article. There's nothing subtle about that, is there?