Photo (sh)op-ing Palin's Foreign Policy Experience

The McCain campaign has strategically arranged for Sarah Palin to meet with 9 international leaders (one of whom is Bono of U-2 fame) over the next day and a half as foreign dignitaries are in NY for a United Nations meeting. Network and print news outlets were outraged, however, that Palin initially refused to allow any press coverage.

As CNN reports:

"The appearances with world leaders, taking place on the sidelines of the United Nation's General Assembly meetings in New York, come as the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain tries to convince voters that Palin is ready for the world stage.

Palin is holding photo-ops with the leaders, but she is not taking questions from any reporters.

The Alaska governor initially said no reporters would be allowed to sit in on her meeting with Karzai. She planned to allow in only photographers and one television crew, but she changed her position after at least five U.S. news networks protested.

CNN does not send cameras into candidate events where editorial presence is not allowed."

Even FOX News expressed outrage:

The NY Times opened their report this way:

"Live from New York, it’s Gov. Sarah Palin’s top-secret foreign policy tutorial!

Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, is scheduled to meet Tuesday in New York with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, and former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.

But the McCain-Palin campaign’s sharp limitations on coverage of the meetings have sparked a mini-revolt – and a threatened boycott — among the press corps..."

Similar frustrations were voiced by ABC News, Yahoo! News, MSNBC, and others.

Finally, after intense media pressure and not having given a press conference since before either political convention (and well before the selection of his running mate) McCain took questions for 11 minutes after a campaign stop in Michigan.

While McCain and Palin dodged the press, Obama held a press conference to answer media questions about the economy. Here's a piece of it:



I wonder how the McCain-Palin camp feels about this rendition of Palin's meetings:

"Ms. Palin and Mr. Kissinger sat on blue couches, separated by an end table with photographs of President Nixon and President Reagan on it. As photographers were led in, Mr. Kissinger could be heard saying that he gave someone “a lot of credit for what he did in Georgia,” according to a reporter who was allowed to watch...

“Good, good,’’ Ms. Palin said. “And you’ll give me more insight on that, also, huh? Good.”...

The next stop on Governor Palin’s whirlwind diplomatic tour was a meeting with President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. Mr. Uribe has a warm relationship with Senator John McCain, who paid him a visit during extremely unusual campaign trip to Colombia over the summer where he expressed support for a free trade agreement.

The meeting was held in the residence of the Colombian Mission on the Upper East Side in an ornate room with a pink stuffed chair and a chandelier, according to an account provided by the reporter allowed to accompany her into the event, Ms. Palin was overheard telling Mr. Uribe, “Thank you for your work.’’...

This reads more like a society column than a foreign policy testimonial to me...