Fox News cleverly distracted from why the rest of the world laughed at Sarah Palin’s bats*** crazy speeches last week, when she endorsed and campaigned for Donald Trump, and presented her as a liberal media victim, instead.

How crazy was Palin’s behavior? So crazy that even Fox News pundits thought her rant that blamed her son’s domestic violence arrest on PTSD and President Obama was off the rails. And Tina Fey mocked Palin’s nearly-hysterical endorsement speech in Saturday Night Live’s cold open (below).

But MediaBuzz host Howard Kurtz neatly ignored whether the panning was deserved as he discussed Palin with one guest, only, who just happened to be a Republican, Mercedes Schlapp.

Kurtz began by saying Palin expected to get roughed up by the press. He played a clip of Palin saying, overexcitedly, “I was told, you know, warned left and right, ‘You are gonna get so clobbered in the press. You are just going to get beat up and chewed up and spit out.’ And, you know, I’m thinking, ‘And?’”

Kurtz overlooked the manic delivery that Fey riffed off in favor of making it seem as though Palin had been proven right. “As if on cue, the Huffington Post banner headline described Trump and Palin as a “confederacy of dunces” while New York’s Daily news blared, “I’m with stupid!” (and showed pictures of Palin and Trump each pointing at the other).”

“Mercedes, what do you make of this kind of media mockery?” Kurtz "asked."

You may recall that a few weeks ago, Schlapp complained on MediaBuzz about the “liberal media bias” of PolitiFact for finding so many Donald Trump falsehoods. So Schlapp's Palin-as-media-victim response was all but guaranteed.

Even so, Schlapp was conspicuously non-praising of Palin (a fact Kurtz seemed to miss). Schlapp said, “The mainstream press has never been friendly to Sarah Palin,” and that it doesn’t get “the Sarah Palin phenomenon.”

Schlapp continued, “Whether you would want to argue about her qualifications for VP, she does again, I think, represent a part of this populist movement that I think is very reflective of what we’re seeing with Donald Trump.”

Kurtz added that Ted Cruz would have almost certainly liked to have had Palin’s endorsement.

Then, Kurtz engaged in a little MSNBC bashing on Palin’s behalf.

KURTZ: On the night of that endorsement, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, referring to the domestic violence charges against one of Sarah Palin’s sons who’s a military veteran, came out at the top of his show and had this to say:

(clip of O’DONNELL): Ask yourself this: what would you do the day after your 26 year–old son, who lives at home with you, is arrested in your home after assaulting his girlfriend and threatening to commit suicide using one of these (an assault rifle).

KURTZ: O’Donnell went on to say instead Sarah Palin and Todd Palin were out endorsing Donald Trump.

“I just can’t believe those comments,” Schlapp griped. She called it “outrageous” for O’Donnell to be “giving parenting tips to Sarah Palin.”

But that distorted the gist of O'Donnell's remarks. Had Kurtz played more for the audience, they would have seen that O’Donnell was painting Palin as a has-been, so desperate to revive her sinking fortunes that she threw her needy son under the bus.

O‘DONNELL: There were actually very few applause lines like that in Sarah Palin‘s 20-minute [endorsement] speech. It was the quietest audience reaction we have seen at any Trump event, for both Donald Trump‘s soft spoken and rumbling introduction of Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin‘s speech.

If Sarah Palin is supposed to add energy to the Trump campaign, it didn‘t happen in that room tonight.

… As she clings to the wreckage of her political career and her unsuccessful attempts at reality TV stardom, Sarah Palin, not surprisingly delivered her endorsement to the candidate who could guarantee her the biggest audience. The candidate who could best stoke the dying embers of her fame.

Not only did Kurtz cherrypick O’Donnell’s comments to make it seem as though he was only being gossipy about Palin’s personal life but in doing so, Kurtz sidestepped the elephant in the room that O’Donnell was really talking about: the pitiful remains of Palin’s “star power” and her even more pathetic character.

Instead, Kurtz took another shot at making Palin a victim. “This does remind me a little bit of when some commentaters in 2008 said, 'Well, how can she be vice president, she’s got five kids to take care of and one of them born with Down’s Syndrome?'” he said.

“Right, and as a mother of five kids I resent that,” Schlapp said.

“You’re very well qualified to speak on that subject,” Kurtz said approvingly.

Watch it below, from the January 24 MediaBuzz, and ask yourself, if Chelsea Clinton had been arrested for domestic violence and attempting suicide and Bill and Hillary Clinton went out campaigning the next day, do you really think that Fox News would not have criticized them for it?