Sunday's front-page story about Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder's dozens of stays at upscale St. Louis hotels at taxpayer expense has prompted a thread in our story comments that the Post-Dispatch has overblown coverage of a Republican while ignoring or underplaying coverage of shady behavior by a Democrat.

Sunday's story by reporter Jake Wagman chronicles how Kinder has billed the state for more than 300 nights in St. Louis, roughly two months a year since 2006 at a total cost of more than $35,000.

To paraphrase one commenter, Kinder's behavior -- "slime-ball" but legal -- appears to have gotten far harsher treatment than the "slime-ball" illegal behavior of Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill.

Two recent examples of McCaskill's behavior were cited: First, she reimbursed $88,000 to the U.S. Treasury Department for money from her Senate office account used to pay for her flights on a private plane she owns, first reported by the website Politico.com. Then she cut a check for nearly $300,000 to St. Louis County for unpaid personal property taxes on the private aircraft for four years.

The Kinder story is in the upper right corner of Sunday's front page, in which is generally referred to as the "lede" position, that is, for the strongest news story of that day's paper. 

The story of McCaskill's reimbursement appeared inside the main news section. But the story of her payment for unpaid personal property taxes appeared in that same news position as the Kinder story. So did the story a week ago, on Sunday, March 27, on how the airplane episode is a significant political and campaign problem for McCaskill.