The McCain campaign is whisking Sarah Palin away to Alaska so that she is "unavailable" to answer any questions from the press (the Fourth Estate of the government) and thus, we the people. It is a shoddy tactic and one reminiscent of a Bush Administration that scripted its press conferences, refused to answer questions from certain reporters, sent talking points to FOX News, and allowed fake reporters in to get out the White House version of stories.
Anyone who thinks a McCain White House will be any different from a Bush White House is seriously deluded. As evidence, witness McCain spokesperson Nicole Wallace defending the unavailability of Sarah Palin to the press, as if it was totally unnecessary for her to face questions. Instead, what Wallace plans is for the American people to just "accept" what it is the campaign tells them about Palin.
Anyone who thinks a McCain White House will be any different from a Bush White House is seriously deluded. As evidence, witness McCain spokesperson Nicole Wallace defending the unavailability of Sarah Palin to the press, as if it was totally unnecessary for her to face questions. Instead, what Wallace plans is for the American people to just "accept" what it is the campaign tells them about Palin.
In her smug dismissal of the media's role in asking questions of the candidates, Wallace was really showing contempt not for reporters, but for voters. I bet there are a lot of undecided voters out there who were intrigued by Sarah Palin last night, but who don't yet know enough about her -- what she believes, what she knows -- to be comfortable with the idea of her as vice president of the United States. It's important to them to know if Palin can handle herself in an environment that isn't controlled and sanitized by campaign image makers and message mavens. Maybe she can, maybe she can't. As far as Wallace is concerned, it's none of their -- or your -- business.
This all begs the question of what is really going on. It appears that this removal from the public eye is so they can "train" her. From Politico:
During this time, Joe Lieberman will be tutoring Palin on foreign policy. I think that scares the bejezzus out of me more than anything. A Vice Presidential candidate who has to be removed from the public eye, and the press, until she has been "trained" enough so that she can be competent to be Vice President. Yikes! Sphere: Related ContentThe campaign will "also use the plane time and time on the ground to begin the education of Sarah Palin," Fineman said. "They want to take that pause to train."
