Just Because You Didn't Vet Her Doesn't Mean You Can Refuse To Let Us Do It

We're getting down to the end, two more topics for tonight.

Since when do the media in this country answer to our political candidates instead of the other way around?

I do not understand why there isn't more uproar over the McCain campaign's decision not to make Sarah Palin available to the media until, according to campaign manager Rick Davis, "[the] point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference."

Deference? This is a previously unknown person! Unlike the names Obama and Biden and McCain, which most members of the American public have at least heard repeatedly, until two weeks ago I venture to guess almost no one outside of Alaska knew who Sarah Palin was and fewer still knew anything about her.

This is a woman who is running to be a Vice President with a statistically much higher chance of ascending to the Presidency than most. In a very real sense, she's campaigning to be President. I think we have a right to know more about her, and I think expectations of deference are entirely unreasonable.

Case in point, the ABC interview with Charles Gibson, the one interview for which she's been made available since having been named. This will not be a hard hitting interview, and I can prove it:

This will not be one of those hard hitting "we sit down together and I ask a batch of tough questions and hold the candidate's feet to the fire" sort of interviews.

No, Charles Gibson will follow her around for two days, snapping up scraps from the table whenever Mistress Palin deigns to let some ort or crumb fall from her plate. The interview will take place whenever Governor Palin or her team decide, for as long or as short as they decide. This means that Mr. Gibson has essentially handed them a leash tied around his nethers. He has to behave, or those question times will be few and far between. Far from holding anyone's feet to the fire, if he asks a question she doesn't wish to answer, the time available for this question session will magically dissipate and the next one will be longer in coming.

Of course, I'm playing right into the campaign's hands, because I'm quite certain that if there is more of an uproar, they'll trot her right out (after having had a few days to cram as much foreign policy and other knowledge into her head as possible) and then make "tsk tsk" noises casting her in the light of victim again. "Those damn liberal bullies, picking on a woman," they'll imply.

Still, it's a fair complaint. She's a candidate for the second (and potentially the first) highest office in the land. We, the people, have a right to vet her as thoroughly as we possibly can, through our agents, the free press.

But then, what do you expect out of the campaign when manager Rick Davis has declared "this election is not about issues but about personalities." If that's true, it speaks not well for us, the American electorate.

Liam.