The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel makes the case today that this election should be about "big issues," and that this week's economic reality check should be, if anything, a reminder of that:

That's why The Nation's lead editorial this week calls for an end to gotcha journalism and the politics of distraction and diversion. It's time to say, Enough! Let's refocus this election on what's truly at stake.

Who could argue with that? The sequel "Return of the Bad Economy" has certainly hit McCain's convention/Palin honeymoon hard -- as was to be expected. Sarah Palin has dominated the campaign and coverage of it ever since McCain announced her as the pick. Some of that coverage has been fair, some not, but clearly the McCain campaign scored by knocking Obama off his message. Now Obama's got a reason to get it back on track.

But it sounds as if vanden Heuvel would rather forget which side kept the Palin story -- and all of its ridiculous tangents -- going. It was the left and the mainstream media. I could try to list all the absurdity, which led to even more absurd discussions, from liberal writers, but there's no need. Whether the Obama campaign did, Democrats wanted to focus on Palin because they thought they could take her down easy. It was a nice ruse from the McCain campaign -- keeping attention on Palin. And certainly the campaign baited Democrats and the media into keeping Palin 24/7 going. Yet nothing said Democrats had to, or should have, focused all their fire on Palin.