John McCain’s campaign continues to shield Sarah Palin from any extended, direct media scrutiny.
Will she ever hold a press conference before November—or make the Sunday morning rounds of sit-down interviews with journalism news programs?
Despite being a largely softball, and light focus interview with Charles Gibson, Palin performed disasterously. So my guess is that the McCain campaign will keep Palin under tight wraps for the rest of the election cycle—and so indulge in a gross betrayal of our democratic process, turning it into a charade.
The logical culmination of this degree of message control and cynicism, bringing a religious fundamentalist this close to the center of American power without sufficient press vetting, is that America is libel to become, over the next decade or two, ever more populist authoritarian—something akin to Putin’s Russia.
Things we thought could only occur in authoritarian countries, will start happening here.
What kind of democracy is this, afterall, if journalists cannot gain any sustained access to candidates?
Prometheus Unbound 