The Never-Present Sarah Palin

Ocean sent me an email a short while ago, saying she'd seen no sign of Sarah Palin at tonight's debate. I responded, no biggie. Probably Joe Biden wasn't there, either. Why waste a running mate's night of campaigning or fund-raising at this late date, when we have, you know, televisions and stuff?

Ocean wrote back to say that she'd just seen Biden on TV doing post-debate spin [added: e.g.], but no sign of Palin. That is significant, I wrote back. Yet another example of the dread that the McCain camp feels at the thought of Palin speaking into a microphone without a script.

I was thinking about passing this along. As reliable as Ocean is, it being hearsay had me on the fence. Then I came across this post by Michael Crowley, which seems like sufficient confirmation (2 out of 2 TV viewers agree!):

Amusing moment on CNN just now. Wolf Blitzer, coming out of a commercial:

"We've been getting some emails from views out there wondering why we spent some time interviewing Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee and not Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee. We would have loved to interview--we'd still love to interview Sarah Palin. Unfortunately we asked, we didn't get that interview...We're hoping that Sarah Palin will join us at some point down the road."

I'm told that Biden appeared on every major network tonight except ABC (which only turned him down because Palin wasn't available, on an equal-time sort of basis).

It's pretty strange when a candidate can't trust his own running mate to be out there spinning on his behalf.

And it's funny that a lot of McCain supporters seem to think that's about media bias and not the fact that Palin is in lockdown somewhere.

Regarding that last line: Yeah, huh? It must be weird to live that far outside reality. (Remember the new measuring tool!)

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[Added] Oh, and a big FY to ABC. It's this lame-assed "Shape of Earth: Views Differ" faux balance that keeps a significant portion of this country uninformed. The truth is: Sarah Palin declined your invitations to speak after the debate. Report that, and don't punish the other side for her shortcomings. Stop letting the loudmouths on the right intimidate you. Do your fucking job. You've got Murrow spinning in his grave.

[Added later] Blogospheric resonance: See Jacki Schechner's thoughts on a similar media moment (h/t: Chez).