Lightning strikes twice

Once the media's conventional wisdom hardens against you, they do this sort of story about divas, chaos, getting off message, and conflict inside a campaign. Sure, once, it's a story, but this Dana Bash masterpiece basically takes two or three older stories, shuffles their paragraphs like a deck of cards, and pretends it's all still news. Because the previous stories predicted that this would keep Caribou Barbie's shopping spree in the news another cycle, Bash makes it come true.

The big media have been doing this to Democrats for years, and it's a relief to see it happen finally to some Republican more recent than Bob Dole, but it's a terrible way to run the media. I suspect it's not accurate in this case, either. Even though Palin's probably stretching the truth a lot about her "favorite consignment shop in Anchorage," I don't think she's the originator of this particular example of Republican wretch excess.

Yes, that's me defending Palin (very, very narrowly) again! I still think she's a ridiculously unprepared and incurious candidate.