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“‘The campaign as a whole bought completely into what the Washington media said — that she’s completely inexperienced,’ said a close Palin ally outside the campaign who speaks regularly to the candidate. ‘Her strategy was to be trustworthy and a team player during the convention and thereafter, but she felt completely mismanaged and mishandled and ill advised,’ the person said. ‘Recently, she’s gone from relying on McCain advisers who were assigned to her to relying on her own instincts.’”

I’m not sure that I’d like to see any of her policies furthered in America’s future, but I would like to see this woman vindicated for the completely condescending way John McCain has treated her in this campaign. Talk about reducing Joe the Plumber into a gimmicky disaster; Palin was his first victim.

Cable news was atwitter today with premature talk of finger pointing with respect to the so-called Republican implosion (I’ll believe it on Nov. 5), but I got a good chuckle out of this quote from Bush campaign alumna and Palin advisor Nicolle Wallace in the aforementioned Politico story, which appears to be relevant on many fronts.

“I am in awe of [Palin's] strength under constant fire by the media,” she said in an e-mail. “If someone wants to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most graceful thing to do is to lie there.”

A lot of people argue that Sarah Palin detracts from John McCain’s relatively respectable reputation, but I’m wondering if it’s rather the opposite. I can’t believe that a woman of her capabilities (scrappy and strategic, if not classically intellectual) is incompetent. What’s more likely is, as we saw when Papa McCain came to babysit her in Round 2 with Katie Couric, that the war hero we’ve all admired over the years has quite a contemptuous side when it comes to women. Tina Brown characterized it well on The Daily Beast today: 

“I suspect that Palin is harboring an angry contempt for her running mate and his handlers. The way they chose her in the first place reeked of dismissiveness. When Hillary got whacked, they made it clear that any skirt on the ticket would do, as long as she was sure to rouse the base. Then they treated her as a retard and wouldn’t let her talk to a reporter. The Couric debacle was just about those idiots giving her the wrong lines. Rove, now bestowed with magician status by both parties, never allowed that to happen to Bush.”

In addition to the subtle smirk she couldn’t entirely conceal on SNL over the weekend, there is further evidence emerging that the real moose-hunting baller within is waiting to escape and eclipse the senior citizen statesman’s shackles. From Julie Bosman on the NYT Caucus blog yesterday: 

“These days, Gov. Sarah Palin seems like a candidate trying to wriggle free of her handlers. On Sunday night, she twice took questions from reporters, the first time on an airport tarmac without her press staff’s knowledge. After landing in Colorado Springs late Sunday, Ms. Palin marched over to a local television crew and began answering questions on camera, sending the traveling press corps sprinting in pursuit, and her press staff scrambling.

‘Get Tracey,’ one campaign aide barked into his headset, calling for Tracey Schmitt, Ms. Palin’s ever-watchful spokeswoman, who rushed over to supervise the impromptu press conference. (Ms. Schmitt, looking distressed, tried several times to cut it off with a terse ‘Thank you!’ in between questions, to no avail.)”

I might be worried if I were Tracey, too, but not that the Governor would further embarrass herself or the campaign. I’d be worried that letting the woman speak and establish herself as the real leader she is would underscore and legitimize her extreme ideological platform, further polarizing the GOP ticket from what Americans are looking for in this election.

Gotta give Sarah Palin some love for being a good sport on SNL. She did look a little bit uncomfortable, but considering the show’s been bagging her since the day McCain selected her as his veep choice, it was pretty cool that she had the guts to show up and stare down Tina Fey. I pretty much fell off the couch when Amy Poehler shot the “mother-humpin” moose down and all the mavericks in the house put their hands up.

I wish I could say the same about Oliver Stone’s “W,” which I caught on Friday afternoon. (The theater was surprisingly packed for the twighlight show, even though the movie came in 4th at the box office, according to Variety.) The tone was meant to be part satirical, part drama, but it didn’t work for me. The caricatures of leaders depicted were definitely a farce, as intended, but the script just didn’t add a whole lot that we haven’t covered already to the conversation about George Bush or the last eight years. I expected more.

“Do you know what was so great about Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan? They were three of the biggest trash talkers in the history of the NBA, but they had the game to back it up.

Somebody should tell that to Gov. Sarah Palin.

Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential running mate has been running around the country, firing up her — yes, her, and not necessarily McCain’s — loyal supporters by blasting Sen. Barack Obama for “palling around with terrorists” and demanding that the American people know exactly when he learned of the past of 1960s radical William Ayers.

She has stoked the crowds by saying, “This is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America.” We all know what that is designed to do: Portray Obama as a foreigner who isn’t as American as she. Or you. Or Joe Six-pack, the hockey mom, soccer mom, Wal-Mart mom, NASCAR dad and the other coded words she uses regularly.

But what is truly pathetic is that Palin talks tough, but is really scared of facing her own issues.

Since she is good at proclaiming that the American people need to know who Barack Obama is — an attempt to paint him as a shady figure who might occupy the White House — the American people deserve to hear Palin answer if her husband, Todd, a former member of the Alaska Independence Party, agreed with its founder, who wanted to secede from the union.

Is there anything more anti-American than wanting to sever ties with the country? ”

This interview fuels the argument that the McCain camp needs to let Palin speak for herself. In several instances she discusses her “personal” opinion and states that it is not an official “McCain-Palin” position. She has a gay friend and doesn’t want to jail incest victims who have abortions … maybe we’re not getting the candid look at Sarah that we deserve.

Katie Couric’s questions were beach balls compared to the fight Sarah Palin is going to have Thursday with Joe Biden. I hope and pray that he doesn’t ease up on her just because she’s a newbie and a woman. After the gauntlet she threw down at the RNC, it’s hilarious to see the McCain camp proclaiming that anyone would have trouble being on the other side of a microphone. It isn’t when you know what the f@#$ you’re talking about.

You’d think that Sarah Palin was renting out the cave next to Osama bin Laden’s in Bora Bora. On the biggest night of the campaign thus far in which we heard from the three male candidates on the respective tickets, she was nowhere to be found. I’ve got to agree with Campbell Brown on this one: Let this woman speak!

I’m not sure how much of it is blatant sexism versus preventing their beauty queen from upstaging the boring, elderly veteran. Either way, it’s ridiculous.

Since I didn’t watch it live, but read about it first and watched the rest online, I agreed with James Poniewozik’s observation on Time.com:

“The one thing that strikes me is that the interview comes off much different if you read the transcript than if you watch the video. On the page, it’s pretty unremarkable, even the quotes that are being picked up on the political blogs. … On the screen, it was much different; the real information, it seemed, was in the tone and manner of the exchange.”

Right down to the Courtyard Marriott-style meeting room and those uncomfortable looking chairs, the whole thing just felt awkward. And as journalists, if we’re trying to avoid distracting talk about sexism, it’s best to not set up that screen shot with a big imposing man towering like Professor Snape over the female Republican Vice Presidential candidate. 

The substance of the interview focused primarily on her experience (or lackthereof), and she cleverly leveraged an Obama argument (also from Time’s coverage):

“Asked if she’d ever met a head of state, she raised her unshaken hand like a badge of honor: ‘We’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time,’ she said. ‘It is for no more politics as usual and somebody’s big fat résumé maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment where, yeah, they’ve had opportunity to meet heads of state.’”

This leads me to suspect that in debate season, the Republican reply to criticism of BO’s experience will be, “Yeah, well, at least she’s running for Vice President.” (Dems will have to try hard not to abuse John McCain’s impending death as an easy counterpoint …) 

For those who are wondering how she’ll match up against Biden, I think we have our first look at an answer. Much like in her basketball days, she’ll play scrappy, but it will be tough to take down a seasoned veteran. Biden will have to focus heavily on how she reinforces John McCain’s policies and takes them to a new extreme, which should be easy for him to do with his long resume, freeing up Obama to reclaim the change-agent title he created long before anyone else tried it on for size.