Today at a McCain-Palin rally in Virginia, former senator Fred Thompson mocked the media for requesting more access to Palin. Using a common McCain campaign talking point, Thompson said that reporters were just upset that John McCain didn’t pick a well-known media favorite:
East Coast media says, “but we don’t know her.” She hasn’t been on the talk shows on Sunday. She hasn’t been on the cover of [T]ime magazine. And I say to them, “you may not know her but whose fault is that?” She hadn’t been hiding anywhere.
Perhaps Thompson hasn’t seen the Sept. 15 issue of Time magazine:
Or the past two issues of Newsweek:
Despite Thompson’s remarks, it’s not the media’s “fault” that they don’t “know her.” The McCain campaign has repeatedly refused to let Palin answer questions from reporters, saying that the press has to show her “deference.”
As recently as yesterday, reporters were allowed on Palin’s plane, but campaign aides demanded that all flight conversations would be off the record, conditions about which at least one reporter objected. For her part, Palin “greeted the media and they chatted about who had been to Alaska, but little else was said.”