Christians Only

As NBC finally gets its sitdown with Sarah - with her Presidential candidate turned chaperone on hand to keep Brian Williams from getting fresh - the rest of the country is talking about her shoes. Is this the RNC's new damage control tactic? Just as the party is facing substantive public scrutiny, the conversation is turned to the most superficial story of this election cycle. The economy is falling apart and we are at war in two countries, whether or not Sarah shops at Payless or Saks is a lot less important than what she does and does not say to Brian Williams (and what she already said to James Dobson). This is the candidate who has done three interviews, two of which exposed serious problems for the people of Alaska and introduced the rest of the country to the potential risk of a McCain-Palin administration. No one is shrieking about her weekly absence from Meet the Press anymore. We've all acclimated to the rules. Sarah doesn't do interviews with just anyone. You have to be one of the three national networks or you have to be a Christian.

If you haven't noticed, Sarah is doing more of these things that if you hit the mute button look like interviews. They're really infomercials brought to you by Pat Robertson and James Dobson (by the way, isn't Focus on the Family a 501c3?) The shiny red faux croc pumps are distracting us from two issues. First, the things that come out of her mouth. The Focus on the Family transcript is beyond comprehension. But even more important than what she says is the fact that a Vice Presidential candidate is running an intentional campaign to exclude or include people based on religion. It's not as if she's accessible to everyone and spending her time with the base. She's only engaging people who agree with her (save a few hours with the networks).

What is one to do when a candidate who flatly refuses to offer her views on anything beyond a few topics, who rebuffs contact with people who are meant to ask questions and on the few occasions she must participate, makes up her own rules? What are we to do with an elected official who does not believe in communicating through the mainstream media? Who is counting on God to get the message out (almost a verbatim quote from the Dobson interview)? The free press is foundational in a democracy. For good or bad, the mainstream media is as important to America as voting. All politicians complain about the "filter" but are we really willing to accept this kind of threat to the essential value of a democratic nation?

If Sarah Palin wanted to be Vice President of Focus on the Family or the National Association of Evangelicals, we would accept and respect her choices. In those jobs, you get to handpick your constituents, you decide who you talk to and when, issues of accountability and transparency are private. While ink is spilled by the barrel on questions of wardrobe and the most thoughtful political minds of our country are reduced to conversations that sound like a Sex in the City episode, we can't help but suggest that the media has lost the plot. The American people are being defrauded, the bill for this is going to be a whole lot higher than 150K in fancy clothing and sparkly shoes.