Palin At It Again

This story broke today. Apparently the McCain campaign wanted to keep the press away from Sarah Palin's meetings with foreign leaders. But CNN finally grew a backbone and told them to give access or there would be no coverage.

It got me thinking about an alarming trend in this election: the Republicans have tried to bury Palin and keep her away from the press. I'm not sure why that is, but if I had to guess, I would assume that they know how incredibly unqualified she is and worry that she would say something totally ridiculous. John McCain himself is about to give his first press conference in three weeks. I give him a bit of a pass because he has appeared on several television programs and taken questions. He also has a track record in national politics that we can use to assess him, though he has become increasingly inconsistent and has started refusing to speak with the press (a troubling sign). Sarah Palin's national record includes an interview with Charles Gibson, who let her get away without answering any questions with any kind of substance, and with some guy on Fox News, who structured his questions in such a way that she could speak in vague platitudes (I did watch some of this). When will the media play "stump the candidate" with Palin? They've done it with McCain and with Obama and with Biden. Why does Palin get a pass?

I read this comment on a news website today, and it troubles me:

Why should Palin grant those lying b*****ds any time at all? I refer to the Charlie Gibson "attempted murder" interview. He didn't want to interview her--he wanted to destroy her.

Screw the media.

Let Sarah Palin do her thing.

This is an incredibly dangerous point of view. If we just "let her do her thing," that means allowing her to use private email to conduct government business in an attempt to hide from open records laws. It means allowing her to continue asserting that she turned down government money for the "bridge to nowhere" when in fact she only killed it after Congress had removed the earmark and made it a national embarrassment. We need to know why she needed so much federal money (our money) for Alaska when Alaskans have no state income or sales tax, and in fact were given 2000 dollars each last year as a bonus--money she could have used instead of federal money (possibly 80 million dollars). If the media doesn't publish something, chances are only a few people know about it. It is the media's job to provide us with enough information to make an informed choice in the election. If they don't force Palin to speak with them, how informed will our votes be?