This morning at the Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, Sarah Palin was asked by a reporter why, after not holding a single press conference during the campaign, she is so willing to speak to the media now. It’s a question that many are pondering as Palin continues a relentless, possibly interminable interview tour which has this week alone found her gabbing with Greta van Susteren, Matt Lauer, Wolf Blitzer, and Larry King. To Palin, the answer was simple: “The campaign is over.” Well, one of them is. As Palin has herself implied, her TV blitz is simply the opening salvo for the next run.
• Howard Kurtz says “Palin is clearly in need of some image rehab” and the media “can’t get enough” of her. In these more relaxed, charming interviews, Palin “is using the media to complain about unfair media coverage. And she has a point.” [Media Notes/WP]
• Ross Douthat believes “that a post-election goodwill tour might be Palin’s best chance for a while to change the ‘Palin Rules’ that have governed her media coverage since August.” Those rules state “that almost any negative claim made about the Alaska governor is to be published first and double-checked later.” So, “if she wants to run for national office in the future,” she’ll need to “charm the ‘elite liberal media’ into changing their coverage of her. [Atlantic]
• Leslie Savan believes Palin is wrongly targeting the media, and specifically Katie Couric, in her recent interviews, almost “as if she carved a backward MSM on her cheek.” [State of Change/Nation]
• Steve Benen ponders why, despite her candidacy turning into a “national embarrassment, and insult to our political system,” we’re finding it “hard to turn away” from Palin. It’s not that we can’t get enough, just that we “haven’t quite come to terms with what’s transpired.” [Political Animal/Washington Monthly]
• Jonathan Capehart pleads, “Gov. Palin, you need to disappear.” While he doesn’t “begrudge Palin one bit for continuing to ride the huge wave of notoriety she’s received from her vice-presidential quest,” if she wants to eventually become known for more than her campaign blunders, “she has to start getting serious, and give serious consideration to the direction of her party.” The other governors attending the Republican Governors Association conference today “are light years ahead of her.” [Post Partisan/WP]
• Alessandra Stanley writes that while “Palin could be turning to television to restore her tarnished image, jumpstart a 2012 presidential bid, or both,” so far she’s displayed “some of the very traits — disarming candor and staggering presumption — that drove some McCain campaign aides to leak damaging accusations about her.” [NYT]
• Joe Garofoli notes, “Now that it doesn’t matter, the woman won’t shut up,” and wonders “WHY she didn’t do other interviews before this.” [San Francisco Chronicle]
• Andrew Sullivan criticizes Palin’s interviewers, including Greta van Susteren and Matt Lauer, for being more “interested in the interview ‘get,’ their own buzz, and their own ratings” than getting to the “truth.” One feels “no sense that these people have followed the actual campaign at all.” [Atlantic]
• Noam Scheiber, though admitting that he thinks Palin is “more likely to become a whacky historical footnote than a player on the national stage,” can’t help but point out how “Yoda-like” one of Palin’s answers to Greta van Susteren was. [Stump/New Republic]
• Kevin Drum doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry after another indecipherable answer to Wolf Blitzer, and supposes it “depends on whether Palin disappears back into well-earned obscurity over the next few months.” [Mother Jones]
• Peter Suderman does believe that Palin needs to give “interviews to big-deal media personalities like Wolf Blitzer” if she wants to stay relevant, “but if this is the best she’s got (still!), I’m not so certain she’s doing herself any favors.” [Confabulum/Culture 11]
Earlier: Sarah Palin Is Back in the Kitchen, But It’s Still Not Quite Enough for Tina Brown
