This just in — duck!

Apparently tired of merely ducking reporters, some high-profile candidates have started lashing out at them. But if recent verbal and physical assaults on journalists are disturbing, the behavior appears to be representative of an even more disturbing political strategy.

When the editor of an online news site approached Alaska Republican senatorial candidate Joe Miller on Sunday to ask questions during a town hall meeting, he was handcuffed, detained and accused of trespassing by Miller’s private security detail. Miller, at least, refrained from making death threats; less restrained was Carl Paladino, the Republican candidate for New York governor, who was so incensed by aggressive questioning last month from a journalist that he shouted, “I’ll take you out, buddy!”

These incidents might reflect the mistakes of inexperienced politicians, but they take place amid an undercurrent of hostility promoted by such “tea party” favorites as Sarah Palin, whose followers revel in her frequent putdowns of the “lamestream media.” What’s troubling is that this disdain for the news media is giving many candidates, especially those backed by the tea party, an excuse for dodging responsibility for their own words and actions: Just blame the messenger.

It’s noteworthy that both Miller and Paladino had reason to fear journalistic scrutiny. Miller had been fending off reporters for weeks after Alaska media organizations got wind of possible improprieties during the candidate’s past as a lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. On Monday, Miller finally admitted on CNN that he had been disciplined for violating the borough’s ethics code. Paladino, meanwhile, started a firestorm after accusing his Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo, of an extramarital affair; when a reporter with the New York Post asked a perfectly reasonable question about whether he could prove the unsubstantiated allegation, Paladino responded with a threat. His campaign then tried to justify Paladino’s behavior by accusing the reporter of being biased toward Cuomo.

We get that conservatives don’t think they get a fair shake in the mainstream media. The notion of objectivity in journalism was long ago dismissed by blogs, cable news and talk radio, and even “mainstream” newspapers and networks sometimes fail to live up to their own standards of fairness. But at least they make an effort to be fair, unlike the nakedly partisan news outlets on cable. When conservatives demand “fair” coverage, it often seems that what they really want is uncritical promotion of their ideas and campaigns.

Whatever their excuse, whatever their position on the political spectrum, when politicians run away from cameras or lash out at reporters for simply doing their jobs, it’s a pretty good bet that they have something to hide.