Vice President Mike Pence came under fire this week for not wearing a protective mask during his visit to the Mayo Clinic . Liberal journalists had a conniption.

And sure, Pence ought to have led by example. But it’s really not that big a deal, especially given how regularly he is being tested for the virus.

But the liberal media freakout over this “controversy” looks much more absurd when compared to their relative blackout of serious and corroborated, credible sexual assault allegations against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

About a month ago, former Senate staffer Tara Reade came forward to accuse Biden of having forcibly penetrated her in 1993. While the charge certainly remains unproven, it has at least been corroborated by two contemporaneous accounts. Already, it's a much more credible allegation than the one that caused a news nuclear bomb in 2018, almost destroying Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

Under the “believe women” standard, this should be a huge, huge deal. Instead, the media are feeding on non-stories like Pence's.

A new study from the conservative Media Research Center finds that the broadcast and cable networks networks, not including Fox News, have spent at least three times more airtime on the silly Pence mask story than on the charge against the Democratic nominee. It would require a mind-boggling level of mental gymnastics to spin this as anything other than journalist negligence driven by partisan motivations.

“Between 2:00 p.m. Eastern Tuesday and 2:00 p.m. Eastern Wednesday, live programming on ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC dedicated 87 minutes and 27 seconds to Pence lacking a mask,” the study concludes . “That’s in contrast with a TOTAL of 28 minutes and 44 seconds for Reade’s allegations since they first arose on March 25.”

“Sadly, ABC and NBC have yet to utter a single word about Reade, but they’ve spent one minute and 26 seconds and one minute and 53 seconds respectively boasting that Pence created ‘a controversy’ for his ‘apparent case of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do,’” writes Newsbusters.org Managing Editor Curtis Houck. “So, a man who was heavily tested for the coronavirus not donning a mask was ‘a controversy’ but credible allegations of a presidential candidate penetrating a staffer in 1993 wasn’t?”

Houck’s incredulity is warranted.

The only logical conclusion to draw here is that liberal journalists are, with some exceptions, subject to a hyperpartisan double standard in a blatant effort to get Biden elected. This gross #MeToo hypocrisy extends into the highest levels of the Democratic Party, with former “believe women” advocates from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Stacey Abrams to Elizabeth Warren all falling in line behind Biden, as if completely oblivious to the charge against him.

The unfair standards on display here will rightly infuriate Republicans and conservatives. But the true losers are victims of sexual assault. Turns out, many of the liberals who embraced the #MeToo movement never gave a damn about these women at all.