Palin Pushback

PALIN: I've read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media --

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I'm curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

COURIC: Can you name any of them?

PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

McCain, joining Palin for one of the Couric interviews, said it was "gotcha journalism" for television to replay an answer she gave a restaurant customer on the campaign trail over the weekend. Palin said she favored U.S. attacks in Pakistan from across the border in Afghanistan, contradicting McCain's position.

Palin's debate against Biden, a 35-year Senate veteran, is drawing unprecedented attention. She has become the culturally polarizing force at the heart of the presidential campaign, at times overshadowing the top-of-the-ticket men.

"This is shaping up to be the event of the election," said Ryan Lizza, the New Yorker's Washington correspondent. He offered a blunt explanation: "We're at war, the economy is in collapse, and John McCain picked someone who by most objective measures is not qualified to be president if he dies -- and he's a 72-year-old who's had cancer. It's the shock factor."

Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, dismissed the attacks, saying: "Liberal feminists are really ticked off that there's an attractive, pro-life feminist who's taken the nation by storm." A woman like that, "who also hunts moose and takes on corruption in our most remote state, is foreign to a lot of Northeastern media types." But even Lopez called Palin's initial outings with Couric "disturbing."

Geneva Overholser, director of the Annenberg communication school at the University of Southern California, called the CBS interviews "one of those awful things to watch -- someone thrust into the national limelight and it begins to look as if we might be watching a frightening act of failure."

For the news business, Palin has become a bankable star. She is the most searched term on the New York Times Web site for the past 30 days. Her Wikipedia page drew 6 million visits last month, three times as many as McCain's or Barack Obama's. On YouTube, videos of Fey spoofing Palin have been viewed more than 4.5 million times. And footage of Palin's swimsuit walk in the 1984 Miss Alaska competition has been viewed 680,000 times in the past few days.

Newsweek has done two cover stories featuring Palin; Time has done one. Gibson's interviews with Palin boosted his evening newscast and a "20/20" special to No. 1.