Two Politico reporters, Fred Barbash and David Marsh, posted a story last night that quoted four presidential historians on Sarah Palin’s choice as Jon McCain’s running mate. The piece’s headline, “Scholars question Palin’s credentials,” leads one to believe that the historians were critical of the choice. But only one was actually critical, Dr. Matthew Dalleck of Virginia Tech University.

Says Dalleck:

“I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major-party ticket in modern history,” “It would be one thing if she had only been governor for a year and a half, but prior to that she had not had major experience in public life,” Dallek said of Palin. “The fact that he would have to go to somebody who is clearly unqualified to be president makes Obama look like an elder statesman.”

In history, huh? Well Dallek shows his partisan side with this whopper:

“It would be one thing if she had only been governor for a year and a half, but prior to that she had not had major experience in public life,” Dallek said of Palin. “The fact that he would have to go to somebody who is clearly unqualified to be president makes Obama look like an elder statesman.”

It’s likely Dallek is a Democrat as he wrote speeches for Dick Gephart. A skilled historian and on faculty at Virginia Tech its alarming that he would be so narrow in his criticism that’s both misleading and inaccurate.

But Dallek was the only one who was so pointed in his comments. Two other respected historians, both donors to Democrats were more measured and scholarly in their comments.

David Kennedy merely said that Palin is a wild card. And Doris Kearns-Goodwin said that if Palin had been around two teram as a govenor it would have been an incredible choice. This is hardly critical.

So why the misleading headline? Its unlikely that Barash and Marsh wrote it and it was done by editors at Politico and does indeed indicate that a number of presidential historians were giving a thumbs down to the Palin pick and it wasn’t the case.

So not only did Politico editors mislead readers, they cut their reporters off at the knees. Barash and Marsh did some solid reporting by getting the thoughts of noteworthy presidential historians for an article that sought to put Palin’s selection in the perspective of history. But their editors used their clearly professioanl work to generate a hit piece on Sarah Palin.

Mission accomplished by the partisan hacks at Politico though. Over 100 Google links exists that follow the false narrative.