No Questions: Palin Won't Talk To Press

A John McCain campaign aide tells Jay Carney that she sees no reason why Sarah Palin should have to answer reporters' queries:

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

Watch the exchange:

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter predicts how this strategy will play out:

I'd imagine that Palin will dodge press conferences in favor of interviews with people like Sean Hannity, Larry King and Ellen DeGeneres. Then, when the media complain that she is being kept away, the McCain campaign will cite the half dozen or so interviews she has granted as proof that the campaign press is just bellyaching. Brief press "avails" on the plane will be useless, unless reporters ask open-ended queries designed to elicit proof of real knowledge.

That should get Palin through the next three weeks. By the end of the month, the McCain camp can say she has to go to ground to prepare for the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate, where expectations will be so low for Palin that she will likely emerge intact. It will be up to the press and public to raise enough of a stink about this, that Palin is forced to submit to real interviews with real questions that show whether her real-life experience is any preparation for assuming high office. In that sense, the Palin nomination is as much of a test of us as it is of her.

And Marc Ambinder suggests they can get away with it:

What harm would befall the McCain campaign if Palin sat for one major television interivew with, say, a gentle but probing Diane Sawyer... and then an interview with her local paper in Alaska... and then gave no press avails and held no press conferences. The media would complain a lot. Would people care?

Comments

[sethO123]

05:07 PM on 10/04/2008

David Letterman hit the nail on the head on his show last night...09/03/08. He theorized to Brian Williams that she set up a little cutesy retort to Joe Biden when she asked him if she could call him 'Joe'. The one about "say it ain't so Joe." It was a simple little 'Rovian' trick but to me it high lighted the low life McCain campaign team's effort to use any underhanded method and then some, to make her look like an acceptable republican VP candidate. She does seem to be the expert on blah, blah, blah of memorized, completely unrelated to talking points that could only make fools believe her when she spouts them in her fake, homey sounding blather. As punishment to McCain for choosing her as a running mate he should be crushed in November. Not just beaten, but simply humiliated. Joe Biden was a gentleman and she an attack dog dummy.

[DJStadt]

05:30 PM on 09/11/2008

This is ridiuclous. Obama can't even speak off the teleprompter after 19 months on the campaign trailer. He rarely does unscripted interviews with the press and you people are going to dog a VP candidate for not jumping into the fire 2 weeks after her nomination. Here is my question, why is the media not asking Obama to speak to the press openly? How come the media has not looked deep into his record 19 months, but yet they have been all over Palin's in 2 weeks. Here is the answer Liberal Media Bias.

[postman606]

04:32 PM on 09/15/2008

I hate for facts to mess with your tiny brain, but I have seen Obama speak numerous times without a teleprompter and give many interviews on the fly. Republicans should heretofore be known as "Pinocchio". If you don't beleive me or your lying eyes, look it up.

[simkmer]

04:52 PM on 09/23/2008

The media is FAR from liberal. Boy, I do not see what you see.

[newsweek1945]

05:05 PM on 09/10/2008

If they are not letting her talk now, what makes any sane citizen think that they will let her talk later. She has done her bit by inciting the righteous Right and True Believers. If she and Cain McCain get elected, they will be embedded in the white house, then watch out, she will yell her little head off and tell you what their god has in store for all of for you!

[enochroot]

03:47 PM on 09/10/2008

wow, we expect her to be able to be VP of this country in < 6 months, yet she can't take uncensored questions from random reporters?

that is scary.

i'll try that with my next job interview, i'll tell the employer, "every thing you need to know is in my resume", and "send me the questions you want to know, i'll solicit answers, and reply to the ones that I determine you need to know".

unbelievable. why aren't you people in the press doing your AMERICAN duty and uncovering this for what it is. she isn't prepared. expose it.

[Janabi]

08:24 PM on 09/09/2008

In 1997, a Wasilla group called Concerned Citizens asked Palin to appear before them to answer questions. Her hometown paper the Frontiersman reported, “she doesn’t intend to face the hostile group to answer their questions.” Her deputy administrator said that the group could fax the questions and she would answer them then.

[postman606]

04:36 PM on 09/15/2008

Let's not forget that the majority of her "evcecutive experience" was as mayor of Wasilla and as you so aptly pointed out she was so inept and corrupt she needed an adminitrator to handle the day-to day operation.

[Provit2me]

11:59 AM on 09/09/2008

QUEEN PALIN - does not do interviews with just anyone. She is better then that. (ouch! bit my tongue) I cannot believe that we - Americans- are letting these Reps get away with this. I don't care if you're a Dem/Rep I want to know. We want to know. All hail Queen Palin....

[JennyJay]

11:11 AM on 09/09/2008

This woman is HOLLOW, not shallow, or backward, just plain old EMPTY, HOLLOW.
McCain will never let the press see what's really inside her head because there is nothing there.

[dhinds]

12:50 PM on 09/10/2008

That's why McCain chose her - she's his Pom Pom Girl and Master of Ceremonies; someone to introduce him to the public in those events he uses to promote the image he's built up over the years as a American War Hero, a false image in itself.

Am I the only one that fails to see leadership in McCain's bombing the civilian population of a small country that posed no threat to the USA but fought (on their own turf) for their right to chose a socio-economic-political system that didn't fit the model the USA had set for itself?

Yet today, Hensley corporations sell beer in Vietnam (not to mention Iraq and Afghanistan), so what was the Vietnam War all about?

As for McCain's supposed heroism (something he never demonstrated on the ground), I give more credit to those that were willing to publicly protest a war that never should have been fought in the first place, a war that McCain continues attempting to fight to this day.

[319]

10:56 PM on 09/16/2008

Bravo! Your analysis is right on the money.

[Abouttogiveup]

10:05 AM on 09/09/2008

The PALIN/mccain campaign should be referred to by the democratic party as Lambchop (the puppet,come on!) meets The Illusionist (the movie). Lampchop is unable to communicate with the media without the ministrations of her puppet master(s) and that vision of Lambchop seen on stage at the Republican Convention was not reality, but the reflections of the work of great a illusionist, greater in complexity then the orange tree trick that seemed to have a seed magically grow into fruit bearing tree status before the eyes of the audience. Unlike the visions of personages conjured up by the illusionist in the movie PALIN may be required to make decisions. Should the American people ever have to lean on PALIN there needs to be something solid there to lean on, less we all fall down.

[gretcheno]

10:27 AM on 09/09/2008

IA she is in another city saying the SAME thing. She has the campaign speech memorized.

[cxx]

09:59 AM on 09/09/2008

If only Tim Russert were still here. RIP.

[papapj]

09:57 AM on 09/09/2008

Let Sarah speakl, McCain campaign! What are you afraid of?

http://www.letsarahspeak.com

[1010TRAVIS]

08:57 AM on 09/09/2008

maybe she can help obama figure out where on earth the 51-58 states of the U.S. are located

[shanefish]

10:38 AM on 09/11/2008

It should be pretty obvious that he had meant that he visited 47 states with only one state to go, making 48 not including Alaska and Hawaii = 50 states. You people are grasping!

[aicon]

03:08 AM on 09/09/2008

Gee I wonder why... in the meantime she is probably doing an accelerated course on how the world looks like and what countries border with IRAQ, cause she was only in Canada outside the US.

In any other part of the world this would already disqualify her from any National office position.

Americans.. stop glorifying mediocrity, wake up !! she is a fluke

[Heff1111]

02:33 AM on 09/09/2008

It sounds like they are running scared... so keep up the pressure. The American people deserve to hear just what and how she can respond to the press. She is supposed to be able to step right in as the president... well... lets see her walk the walk and talk the talk. Like Harry Truman said 'If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen." But I guess in this case it's "Get back into the kitchen...lol.

[suemj]

12:36 AM on 09/09/2008

Bocobo,
What's so hard to understand about people wanting answers?! No one's "Circling like sharks to attack." What's so terrible to ask of one who may hold the second highest job ? It's a democracy, and we have every right! Does ANY of this register to hard-headed, in denial republicans?! O'Bama continues to be dragged through the mud about EVERYTHING; and we don't have a right to ask questions of self-proclaimed "powerhouse", whose really hiding like a scared little wimp?! O'Bama continues to be questioned about the Rev. Wright issue, while Ms. "pitbull" has her own church issues they've been hiding. No one seems to care. That's not fair Bocobo; And EVERYONE KNOWS ( and be honest with yourselves if you can,) if that were O'Bama's pregnant daughter, HE WOULD BE SLAUGHTERED. It would be SCANDALOUS, of which conservatives would'nt accept anything less than his head. Contrary to what people may WANT to believe, it's still VERY racial. What I hear every day coming out of mouths is so disgraceful and unfair to O'Bama. Nobody says anything, it's still "Poor Sarah! So please, everyone get out of denial, if she were the Democrat you would be hard on her, as you were with Hillary.All of the underhandedness and ill-intent is disgraceful; and she's too foolish to see that she's being used. That's okay, life has a way of turning it around, and they'll get theirs. Bocobo, cause and effect is a bitch!

[the asp]

07:05 PM on 09/11/2008

It sounds like we have been thrown back to the days of Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority and the Hard Hats". Today it is Sarah Palin and I gave her a new name (let's leave the animals out of the fray, as they have thinking brains for the most part) Hocky Puck With Lipstick = no thinking brain for her or the entire staff on their team. They have no respect for the American people or for that matter any people male/female, or the democratic process, They are a scary duo along with their entire team.

[helloworld2008]

11:27 PM on 09/08/2008

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/09/as-mayor-palins-town-charged-v.php