If the big media in 2008 had dedicated the resources they are now squandering on Sarah Palin’s emails from when she was governor of Alaska and probed Barack Obama’s background and associations, she might now be vice president of the United States and Obama might still be a junior Illinois senator.

Regardless of what you think of Palin, the vultures attacking her 24,000 pages of emails may represent the most flagrant example of bias since, well, since their attacks on any other Republican. “It could be fun,” said Ken Schwenke of the Los Angeles Times about the email probe.

Three TV camera crews and 30 journalists waited for the release of the emails at a state administrative building in Juneau.

What has the public learned so far from this investment of media time and money? We have these great revelations from The Washington Post: “Palin felt passionately about issues of importance to her state, the documents show, and she waged battle with foes large and small”; and she showed “concern about alcohol in Alaska governor’s mansion” because of the presence of young children.

This is news?

With so many far more important issues to be covered, why have these media outlets spent time, money and energy examining Palin’s emails? What were they expecting to find? A message from Rep. Anthony Weiner? Clearly they are not looking for anything that would reflect positively on Palin.

London’s liberal Guardian newspaper promised “live coverage” as the emails were released. The New York Times and Washington Post asked for volunteers to help sort through the documents, offering “credit” to any they used in news stories. How pathetic is that? Since most readers of those newspapers might be considered left of center, does anyone think this exercise in voyeurism will produce anything but their intended goal: the political destruction of Sarah Palin?

Yes, I know, some people think she daily commits political suicide.

ABC News, which, in partnership with The Daily Beast website, offered breathless updates of the email dump, lumped Palin in with Donald Trump as a “sideshow.” If she’s a sideshow, why are they paying her the kind of attention normally reserved for a main attraction?

The answer is that Palin, along with Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is considering a presidential run, represent everything the liberal media hate: They are attractive women who are married to the same men they started with. They think big government is the problem, not the solution to our problems. They are pro-life and, gasp, believe in God.

In Palin’s case, she and her husband have a Down syndrome child, which she refused to abort. Right there you have enough to offend pro-choice feminists, who treat abortion as a sacrament and appear to have no problem with eliminating the “defective,” as was the case with their patron “saint,” Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

The big media, rather than being honest brokers in the process of selecting the next president, see themselves as players. Many regard themselves as kingmakers, or in Palin’s case, “queen destroyers.” Increasing numbers of the public regard their arrogance with disdain. It is a major reason why broadcast news ratings have been falling, along with subscriptions to the Times and Post. Rather than correct their ways, they keep on doing what is harming their publications and pretend the problem lies with the readers and viewers (now non-readers and non-viewers), rather than with themselves.

Sarah Palin’s negatives are high enough and her support low enough to recommend against her running for president. But no one deserves this kind of treatment. Let her rise or fall on her ideas (or lack of them) and not on old emails.

Have they no shame? Obviously not.

© 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.