Hey, Karzai. How's Osama doing?

Yesterday night I wrote this about Palin in an email to some friends:

Never mind that she's been hiding from the media -- allegedly roting for the debates, with Lieberman, amongst others - and avoiding press conferences and unscripted questions from people; like Bush used to do in his early days.

Also, in sarcastic vein, I also blogged a few days back about how she was off to meet some leaders and get some foreign policy experience.

Well... here's an update:

The McCain campaign gave in and agreed to let a CNN producer into the UN meetings.

The New York Times adds that reporters were let in for the preliminary part of Palin's meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Here's what they got:

When Gov. Sarah Palin sat down with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Tuesday afternoon, the polite preliminaries to their conversation centered around children, as Mr. Karzai spoke of the birth of his first child last year.

"What is his name?" Ms. Palin was heard to ask, as she met with Mr. Karzai in the suite of a midtown hotel, according to a pool report.

"Mirwais," Mr. Karzai replied. "Mirwais, which means, 'The Light of the House.'"

"Oh nice," Palin responded.

"He is the only one we have," Mr. Karzai said.

Then the pool of journalists was escorted out, and the meeting began.

The pool was allowed in for a whopping 29 seconds.

So, she and the leader of the country where OBL hides meet and guess what they're talking about! No...not war.... not terrorism & national security... not even her son who is now in Iraq. (She probably brought that up later!). But like two old friends that ran into each other at the grocery store after many years, she cooed "oh...i have 1, and you? Awwww.... how cute. Have a picture?"

Ok...I'm not Maureen Dowd. I cannot do snark that well. What did you expect! ;)

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Also this today:

Last night, the campaign provided locations for Palin's scheduled meetings with two world leaders and Henry Kissinger to a network TV producer, who was assigned to provide editorial content on the meetings for the five television networkers. The reporter was never going to be allowed to sit in on the private meetings but would be permitted to be on hand for as still and video journalists took pictures at the beginning of each meeting.

But just a little more than an hour before Palin's first meeting was set to begin, the pool producer was notified that he would not be allowed in to the photo spray. This means that the McCain/Palin campaign would get the benefit of free pictures of Palin's meeting with world leaders without having to face the possibility that the candidate might have to answer a question from the media.

Television networks, including CBS maintain a policy that if they are prevented from having an editorial presence at an event, they will not allow cameras to shoot

but worry not...

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads. --- via a post on Time magazine's blog

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Yesterday:

Andrew Sullivan: "It is now 24 days since she was announced as a potential president of the United States next January and she still hasn't given a news conference or has any plans to hold one. This black-out of all serious press access has never happened in modern American political history before."

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EARLIER... (many more such reports of the Republican campaign shielding her from dealing with real questions; this is just illustrative)

1) DEBATES are going to be a farce, thanks to McCain campaign making sure there is time for nothing but pre-planned sound bytes that she has roted!

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin,and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

2) Hiding Palin, Part II

How worried are Republicans about putting Sarah Palin (R) before the media?

This morning on JOE, McCain manager Rick Davis wouldn't commit to putting her out to media interviews unless they saw it as helping their campaign. This Sunday is interesting in that three of the four principles are doing sunday shows, the lone holdout: Palin.

The ironic thing is that, despite their attacks on Barack Obama (D), the McCain camp intends to turn Palin into their celebrity. She's doing 30 fundraisers in 60 days. She'll likely be shipped to larger crowd events of friendlies in swing states where she'll give her beauty queen wave, smile, fire-up the crowd, but not take questions or talk to the media.

3) Is Palin Afraid to Talk to the Press?

4) 1 week after the nomination (Sep 4/5)

This isn't necessarily the norm. If I'm not mistaken, Joe Biden did a half-dozen or so interviews during his first week on the trail; a Google News search turns up several for the past few days alone. Then again, Joe Biden probably grants interviews to everyone he encounters.

That it's. One week. Millions of dollars. Fifteen thousand reporters. And "I'm happy to be the governor of Alaska" is all we have to show for it.

That's because they decided...

No interviews till she is ready

A senior McCain campaign official advises that, despite the gaggle of requests and pressure from the media, Gov. Sarah Palin won't submit to a formal interview anytime soon. She may take some questions from local news entities in Alaska, but until she's ready -- and until she's comfortable -- which might not be for a long while -- the media will have to wait. The campaign believes it can effectively deal with the media's complaints, and their on-the-record response to all this will be: "Sarah Palin needs to spend time with the voters."

Not out of the question are appearances on lighter, fluffier television shows. But -- not for a while.