Palin has proven adept (after initial missteps) at spouting banal drivel in response to serious policy questions. She could likely get through a few minutes this Sunday sans gaffe. McCain needs the publicity of an appearance by her yet doesn't want to risk it. Poor choice, she'd probably help the ticket more than hinder. Another lost opportunity in a losing campaign.

And those outlets will continue to broadcast the Palindrone's appearances where she fires up Das Base and avoids the press like the plague.

It would be a win-win for Camp McPOW if she weren't so batshit insane.

Actually, keeping her away from anyone who might ask a "gotcha" question (What's the capital of Alaska?) is still their best policy.

She's too busy studying for four years from now when she will be asked to debate serious challengers and answer questions directly in order to acheive her bid for the White House in '012.

Always accuse your opponent of doing what you're doing.

The irony is rich,
When hypocrisy's the pitch...

Hey Sarah - Where are the medical records? My Friend Brian Williams was inquiring, mentioning that you said 8 days ago they would be forthcoming soon. Oh I see - haven't finished redacting yet . Well just never you mind , probably nothing there anyway.

The McCain team needs about 10,000 more years to put all the voters on cruise ships to Alaska and have them dine with Sarah in the governor's mansion. When everyone see's what Kristol, Morris, and other the other dick heads saw in Palin, she'd then be safe for the Sunday morning shits and grins.

At least we are spared from one more exposure.

I agree with Steve Duncan. What do they have to lose at this point?
OK - potentially more votes but McCain's the big gambler isn't he?

I guess this is one last bet he's not willing to make. When your out of chips...

Accusing opponents of tactics you are using iis the Neocon mantra. That alone should convince people a vote for McCain is a vote for more of the same. They have followed the Bush campaign tricks and governing tactics, faithfully.
They also remind me of the way kids fight.. except the kids are smarter!
Also their who;e campaign has been based on fear.

Clearly being interviewed on a Sunday morning show would be a violation of Palin's first amendment and freedom of religion rights. Or something.

Accusing opponents of tactics you are using iis the Neocon mantra.

No, its the Rovian mantra: "neocons" are united by a particular approach to policy, not electoral politics.

Poor Sarah......with all the gotcha journalists, and gotcha voters, and gotcha ___________ (fill in blank), what's a poor back-stabbing/power-grabbing/religious-whacko to do?

What is even richer is that McCain is making a fool of himself for nothing; the people he needs to buy this lame, tired crap have finally realized what it is.

"The irony is rich"

and the hypocrisy is squalid.

It reflects poorly on both the McCain campaign and the mainstream media that Sarah Palin has been kept from many meaningful interactions with the press.

That was the campaign's game plan, I'd wager, especially after the Gibson and Couric disasters. Thank god that there have been some media entities that have at least tried to vet her over the past two months.

After Tuesday, this woman needs to be crushed, for the good of the country. Any sane Republicans out there--I'm looking at you Lugar and Snowe and Collins--need to marginalize her within the party as quickly as possible.

Everything about her needs to be subjected to gentle derision so that few Americans will ever consider her a viable candidate in the future.

The fact that she may still yet become the person sitting one heartbeat away from the presidency, despite her lack of knowledge about foreign and economic policy, should scare the hell out of anyone with three ounces of brainmatter and sound critical thinking skills.

It would be nice to see McCain respect the electorate for at least one of the final few days and stop.

"If you don't know me by now, you will never, ever, ever know me!"

Give it a rest senator.

she's so hapless that even "fox news sunday" is out of bounds..... if she can't face "faux news" then how can she face the terrorists????

The media seems to be focusing on the muzzling of Joe Biden as something serious,
yet plays up the censoring of Sarah Palin as too bad, so sad...and unfair to her.

Jon Stewart brought up her witch exorcism with neocon Bill Kristol this past week.
That was a hoot. Wish it was exposed more.

Too bad she isn't on the talk shows, revealing her low IQ, superficiality, and ridiculous ambition.
She incites hateful riots and is of impeachable character--just like Bush, she loves to compete.
And as Victor Hugo once said--
the malicious have a dark happiness

I'm begging everyone I know -- please, PLEASE try to explain to me the Right's infatuation with this woman.

And I'm looking for a real explanation, not the snark I'm perfectly capable of delivering myself.

All else being equal, I'm perfectly willing to believe that conservatives have the ability to think, reason, analyze -- I may disagree with the conclusions they reach, but that's a different matter -- but on this Palin thing I'm absolutely mystified.

She may not go away and for that reason alone it would be instructive to understand how an entire movement can hang its collective hat on what appears to a complete and total ditz.

Why Sarah?
Frank Schaeffer, author of "Crazy for God, How I Grew up as one of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of it Back, said:

"It is ironic that McCain hammered the final nail into the coffin of the Republican Party by trying to reach out to "my" religious conservatives once again. He did this through nominating Sarah Palin. The only reason he chose her was because Palin is ideologically pure on the culture war "issues" that have motivated the far right: abortion, prayer in schools, gay marriage, a concept of a "Christian America," the usual "End Times" Christian Zionism, etc., etc. And the only reason McCain thought this would work is because in the early 1970s through the mid 80s my late father (Francis Schaeffer) and I, along with many others from Dobson to C. Everett Koop to Falwell et al. preached a new religion: national salvation through religiously correct politics. For a while it "worked." Just ask Rove..."

@ Hemlock for Gadflies Two words "Fox News" It poisons their minds. They watch it all day and their Ideological view is shaped by the "Fair and Balanced " reporting . Even if they are not 100% behind Sarah , the mindset created buy the constant barrage allows them to think she is perfectly acceptable. I have a boss at work who has a Masters and a CPA tell me to my face that I should be careful of voting for Obama , because of his associations with that terrorist Ayers.I asked her what news she got that information from and she told me "Fox News - I watch it all the time they're fair and balanced you know" There you have it. I don't know what else to say

"I'm begging everyone I know -- please, PLEASE try to explain to me the Right's infatuation with this woman."

***

Honestly, I think most rightwingers are simpleminded and find themselves infatuated with narratives more than facts.

Beauty has a role, of course. I don't think that Liddy Dole or Kay Bailey Hutchison would be getting the same response from crowds if McCain had tapped either of them, even if their politics were exactly the same as Palin's.

I do think, also, that in addition to the hatred she spews, she uses the rightwing Christian codewords well. "Blessed" is one I've heard her say a few times, e.g., "If the American people bless John McCain and me by electing us...." Rightwingers, who tend to be fundamentalist "Christians," are drawn to that stuff like a moth is drawn to a candle.

Also, the entire "hockey mom, moose hunter" thread of her narrative gives rightwingers a chance to feel superior to wimpy liberals. It doesn't matter that your average commenter on NRO's The Corner is a plump, pasty schmuck who probably hasn't been more than one and a half steps off a paved road, ever. Simply by cheering for Palin, for bestowing on Palin all the qualities that good, strong, industrious Americans are supposed to have, they find her irresistible. Men want to do her; women want to be her.

Scary, huh? Even more so when you consider all the baggage we've learned about her the past two months. The $150,000 wardrobe, the $20,000 make-up artist, the ignorance about foreign policy, the lies about travel and the bridge to nowhere, etc., all are strikes against her in the mind of any rational, sane voter.

The rightwing is entirely irrational, though, as we've seen from countless Youtube clips. These are the same sorts of people who cheered Mussolini and Hitler.

No matter how crummy their own lives are, as long as there is someone their leaders tell them to hate, and as long as their leaders impose order on their lives, they can squeeze a few drops of happiness from life.

Note that, while Palin can't be bothered to go on the Sunday talk shows, McCain will be making an appearance, no doubt w/Tina Fey, on tonight's Saturday Night Live.

At least "Weekend Update" will probably give him tougher questions than would Fox News.

-Z

@ Hemlock for Gadflies

Try reading American Fascists by Chris Hedges.
He describes the right as a group that needs to feel like outsiders. Frequently, the people who gravitate toward that direction are down on their luck, or are misfits, or are abused in some way. The Dobsons and Falwells of the world feed them Jesus' message of the meek inheriting the earth. These people are so hungry to be part of a group they become putty in the right's hands.
Of course, to keep control the movement instills a sense of persecution in its followers. They are very much "outside" the world.

They see Sarah as one of them. Just one of the faithful being unfairly persecuted by the "world".