ABC's Spiritual Vetting of Sarah Palin

Here's a headline on the ABC News website:

What Does Palin's Faith Mean for U.S.?
Like Other Candidates, Palin Had Had to Undergo 'Spiritual Vetting'

ABC is being very careful to frame its story as standard scrutiny of a candidate.

It's happened to John McCain and Barack Obama. Now it's Sarah Palin's turn to go through what one observer has called a "spiritual vetting."

When will it happen to Joe Biden? We know he's Catholic, but I think it would be interesting to explore his beliefs and the way he practices his faith.

Another point--

The lib media did extremely scant "spiritual vetting" of Barack Obama until it became impossible to ignore Obama's allegiance to the anti-American, racist, anti-Semitic Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ. It took a year for them to address Obama and the nature of his now well-known controversial pastor and church.

But for Sarah Palin, the army of investigators digging into every aspect of her life are leaving no stone unturned, and they're doing it in a matter of days.

For two decades, Palin was a member of an Assemblies of God church in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. In 2002, years before she was elected governor of Alaska, Palin and her family switched to a nondenominational church, but Palin still returns to her old church on special occasions.

...Pentecostalism has been described as evangelical experience on steroids. Like evangelicals, Pentecostals believe that the Bible is the literal word of God and that the end of time is near. However, Pentecostals also believe that the Holy Spirit can give you gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophesy, and divine healing.

...Other Christians have sometimes derided Pentecostals as "holy rollers," which may explain the defensiveness ABC News found when visiting an Assemblies of God Church in New Jersey this weekend.

...As America gets a crash course in Sarah Palin, the question has been raised of how her two decades as a member of the Assemblies of God church in Wasilla has shaped her personality. If elected, Sarah Palin would become the most powerful Pentecostal in U.S. history. So how has this church shaped her as a leader?

"Sarah Palin, if she was just a plain Evangelical woman, would have a tough time thinking that she could be VP," said University of Rochester religion professor Anthea Butler. "An evangelical woman might have issues with submission. What's gonna happen with my kids? But a Pentecostal woman is saying God is calling me, I'm gonna answer this call."

Clearly, ABC is negatively depicting Palin as a Pentecostal woman.

In the process, ABC is likely alienating at least some of the estimated 3 million worshippers in the Assemblies of God church in the U.S.

If elected, Sarah Palin would become the most powerful Pentecostal in U.S. history. So how has this church shaped her as a leader?

I don't remember anything like this from ABC during its "spiritual vetting" of Obama:

If elected, Barack Obama would become the most powerful adherent of black liberation theology in U.S. history. So how has this theology shaped him as a leader?

I think ABC needs to get to work on that story.