Palin Pushback

"And, be assured, there is no greater embarrassment for a presidential candidate than constant speculation about whether he is going to have to clean up the mess he made of the one really important pick he had to make as his party's nominee."

Commentary's Jennifer Rubin sees glimmers of hope:

"Sarah Palin's latest Katie Couric interview and certainly the Hugh Hewitt interview from Tuesday show some improvement over her prior outings. She is more confident and less halting than she was in her first Couric outing. There is promise there -- that she can relate the current crisis to ordinary voters (e.g. she and Todd and their 401K plight) and that she can explain her social policy positions in disarming and positive ways. And she very sincerely explained to Hewitt her emotional devotion to Israel. (One wishes Barack Obama would express the same sense of moral clarity on the topic).

"But to be successful, not just survive, on Thursday night she will need to do a few things. For starters, she needs specific answers when asked very basic questions ( e.g. what newspapers does she read, name three things McCain will do to fix the financial mess). She needs to be sharper about Joe Biden. Why is his insiderness is a problem? Because he never rocked the boat when his fellow Democrats were protecting the gross malfeasance of Fannie and Freddie and he has $51.5M in earmarks in latest spending bill, for example. She has to clean up her syntax -- e.g. 'feel the impacts.' She also should be talking more about what executive experience she had ( e.g. this is how I cut the budget, this is how you get rid of people in your own party who are corrupt)."

And, of course, be totally relaxed.

Why couldn't Palin name one newspaper she reads? American Prospect's Ezra Klein has a theory:

"You have to appreciate the bind the McCain campaign has put Palin in. By launching an overwhelming attack against 'media elite,' they effectively walled off leading publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Palin couldn't name them, because to legitimize them would undercut the campaign's rhetoric from recent weeks. At the same time, the fear is that she's really just a parochial, small town mayor and small state governor who's unready for the national stage. She can't name the Anchorage Daily Post or whatever and risk someone reporting that her primary information source doesn't even have a foreign bureau."

But maybe McCain/Palin can get even more creative at working the refs, Michelle Cottle suggests in the New Republic:

"At first, the campaign smeared anyone asking questions about -- or of -- Palin as snotty, contemptuous elitists who disliked poor Sarah because she is a regular person.

"As that angle became exahausted, the campaign decided that, on second thought, anyone who doesn't love Sarah must be a raging sexist with no respect for the entire gender.

But time moves on, and it seems that this week's approach will be to dismiss Palin's own screw-ups as the shameful product of 'gotcha journalism' ---- even in instances when Palin is responding to a regular voter (i.e. not a reporter) asking a question at a campaign event, and even when she gamely tackles said question with great zest and specificity. No matter: Still gotcha journalism.

"Whew. Team McCain is burning through the list of groups to blame at an alarming clip. At this rate, with five weeks left to go, they are at serious risk of running out of ways to paint Palin as the victim of some overarching prejudice. Religious persecution is still available for use, as is the well-documented bias against people who wear glasses."