Eric Boehlert, columnist for the liberal watchdog site Media Matters, says Norm Coleman has mostly avoided the “dreaded sore loser label … that can be a career-killer for any politician.”

In a very long opinion piece, he says, “The press has largely given Coleman and his Republican supporters an open canvas on which to operate.”

He notes that Al Gore was called a sore loser in 2000. “I doubt a day went by during the Florida recount when there wasn’t a “sore loser” reference to Gore in the press. (In Nexis, I found nearly 900 “sore loser” press mentions in Gore articles between November and December 2000.)”

But here, he says, Coleman and his attorney haven’t had to worry about it. “They can play hardball with impunity because they’re getting a free pass from the press,” Boehlert says.

And he wonders:

“If Coleman soon suffers yet another recount loss and appeals to the Minnesota Supreme Court, will the press finally dip its toe into the sore loser pool? What if Coleman loses at the Minnesota Supreme Court in April or May and then appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could then tie up the Senate seat into next year? Will the press then suggest Coleman and Republicans are sore losers?

“Is there any point along Coleman’s unprecedented litigious path at which the press will apply the same standard to a Republican that it applied to a Democrat?”