Sarah Palin and the MSM

James Poniewozik and Jason Zengerle both note that (in Zengerle's words) "for someone who spent so much time railing against the mainstream media in the run-up to the election, Sarah Palin sure is spending a lot of time giving the dread MSM post-election interviews." Poniewozik notes that "she'll only have the white-hot pop-cultural attention--already starting to cool--for a while longer," so it makes sense to make the most of it. That's true enough, but I'd also note 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 - rules which state, so far as I can tell, that almost any negative claim made about the Alaska governor is to be published first and double-checked later. (The rules were set during the convention-week feeding frenzy, and excused on the grounds that the media had to play catch-up on an unknown nominee, but now that Palin's no longer a candidate for vice president they seem to still be in effect.)

The McCain campaign, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the appropriate response to this and other apparent displays of bias was to go to war against the press - and we all saw how well that worked out. It may be that unfair coverage of various sorts is just baked in the cake for Sarah Palin from now on. But if she wants to run for national office in the future, trying to charm the "elite liberal media" into changing how it covers her seems like a savvier bet than just complaining about its bias.