Baby Talk

"Governor Palin has no history of health problems," Goldfarb says. "We believe that a candidate should be able to preserve some privacy in this process, and we're confident the American people will validate that judgment come election day."

Sullivan, one of the earliest bloggers, has been on a tear about Palin lately, calling her "a compulsive, repetitive, demonstrable liar." But it is the Trig question that has his critics, especially on the right, up in arms. For instance, the Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last, on his Galley Slaves blog, says: "Andrew Sullivan is once again openly using The Atlantic as a platform to demand that Sarah Palin 'prove' that she is mother of her youngest child. It is a disgrace for the magazine and everyone associated with it. One hundred and fifty years of storied history set ablaze in fortnight by a single writer."

There's a difference, obviously, between the fact-checked copy that goes into the magazine and the free-wheeling platform that Atlantic gives its bloggers. But Sullivan's Trig postings have troubled some of his colleagues, and he has been in a veiled debate with fellow Atlantic writer Ross Douthat, who wrote:

"If you think that many of the same people who bleat the loudest about the evils of 'Rove-style' politics aren't happy to similarly dirty their hands for the sake of their own causes and candidates -- well, you need only look at some of the coverage of Sarah Palin's family to see how quickly principle gives way to expedience when power is at stake."

Sullivan responded to his detractors last week:

"All this blog has done is ask for facts and context about a subject that the Palin campaign has put at the center of its message, facts about a baby held up at a convention as a political symbol for the pro-life movement, and cited in Palin's acceptance speech. You do that, you invite questions about it. I make absolutely no apologies for doing my job. I find the account of her pregnancy and labor provided by Palin to be perplexing, to put it mildly, and I have every right to ask questions about it, especially since we have discovered that this woman lies more compulsively and less intelligently than the Clintons."

Palin found herself in a different kind of controversy yesterday. No presidential or vice presidential candidate in my lifetime has been so shielded from the press. We got a striking demonstration yesterday when Palin was to meet with some foreign leaders at the U.N. to burnish her nonexistent foreign-policy credentials. Here's the CBS account:

"John McCain's presidential campaign has shielded the first-term Alaska governor for weeks from spontaneous questions from voters and reporters, and went to striking lengths Tuesday to maintain that distance as Palin made her diplomatic debut. The GOP campaign, applying more restrictive rules on access than even President Bush uses in the White House, banned reporters from the start of the meetings, so as not to risk a question being asked of Palin. McCain aides relented after news organizations objected and CNN, which was supplying TV footage to a variety of networks, decided to pull its TV crew from Palin's meeting with Karzai. Overheard: small talk."

CNN has the crucial details:

"As the pool entered, the Afghan president appeared to be telling Palin about his young son, who was born in January 2007. . . .

"After 29 seconds observing the meeting, CNN and other photographers covering the meeting were escorted out of the room."

Washington Monthly's Steve Benen praises the media pushback: