Matters of Opinion

If nothing else, the choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate is allowing Republicans to return to one of their favorite campaign issues: Blame the media. [I think I may still have my "Annoy the Media, Re-elect Bush" bumper sticker somewhere.] The McCain campaign just today decried a "faux media scandal" and declared "this nonsense is over."

-- Leading the charge against the media is one of the most important media properties in the world, The Wall Street Journal: The Beltway class is in full-throated rebellion against a nondomesticated conservative who might pose a threat to their coronation of Barack Obama and the return of Camelot-on-the-Potomac.
-- The New York Times, on the other hand, fits the Big Media role: If John McCain wants voters to conclude, as he argues, that he has more independence and experience and better judgment than Barack Obama, he made a bad start by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
-- Slate media critic Jack Shafer says the press should send McCain a big thank you for making the presidential race interesting again: Thanks to McCain's miscue, everything the press touches about Palin turns into a scoop: her earmark flip-flops, her political inexperience, her Alaska Independence Party connection, her views on teaching "creationism", her book-banning phase, plus the "troopergate" scandal, her husband's ancient DUI, and her pregnant teenage daughter. And the press rampage has only just begun.
[Palin's troopergate is different from Eliot Spitzer's.]
-- Fascinating take on this from The Denver Post's Ed Quillen, who ignores the experience issue to compare the Palin choice to Dwight Eisenhower's selection of Richard Nixon, another time a moderate who needed to shore up support from his party's right wing: The literati may have sneered, but it was a big hit in what came to be known as Middle America, and Ike was stuck with Nixon.
-- In The San Francisco Chronicle, Debra J. Saunders says McCain is taking a gamble and trusting the American people to judge whether they like it: In this choice, McCain risked the race, but not the nation, secure in the knowledge that voters know leadership when they see it.
-- The Dallas Morning News notes that, in her convention speech tonight, Palin will have the media all to herself, and how she handles it will make all the difference: If she delivers an eye-popping speech to delegates – and, more importantly, to potential voters in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania – she quiets the scuttlebutt. If she falls short, she risks creating an avalanche of doubt about her candidacy, not to mention Mr. McCain's judgment.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer