Are they serious?
The McCain campaign statement says:
"This vetting controversy is a faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee for vice president of the United States who has never been a part of the old boys’ network that has come to dominate the news establishment of this country," his statement said.
Do they think it's their perogative to inform the media - and the American people - what they can and can not seek to discover about a nominee for vice president? Well, the answer is,
Of course they think exactly that - what was I thinking? They had a pre-determined fantasy about how the Palin nomination was supposed to go down "historic" "attractive to Hillary voters" "Wow factor" and are now seriously perturbed that the media - old and new - is not falling into line and repeating their talking points.
Well, ok, they have some excuse for thinking that's how this media stuff works. For them.
So I can understand there being some confusion on their part regarding how this can be so out of their control. Their surrogates are repeating the usual ridiculous talking points, on cable show after cable show, yet somehow, instead of just a steady repitition of the pre-approved "Palin Points" the questions and answers just keep on coming.
I realize that they want to portray "the vetting scandal" as a "faux media scandal," but quite frankly, Palin's daughter's pregancy aside (and it is the Palin herself who sent out the news release about that, thereby making it, er, news, and the Republicans who appear to be getting ready to promote the young couple as some sort of Christian Right example for the youth of America at tonight's convention) isn't the kind of spotlight currently being turned on this unknown governor's record the kind of thing we used to call "journalism?"
I won't add a poll, but here's a link to an online poll, asking whether the media should continue scrutinizing Palin. The yes votes currently outweigh the no votes, by about two to one. And I couldn't help noticing that the first commenter noted that since Palin wasn't vetted, we have to do it ourselves.
I don't think that's going to go over well with the McCain campaign who has just unilaterally declared an end to the American public's right to know.
"This nonsense is over," declared senior campaign adviser Steve Schmidt in a written statement.
Um, somehow Steve, I think not.