Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin had a busy day yesterday. While the McCain-Palin spokespeople were disinviting then re-inviting the press, she met with Afghan President Hamid Karzhai, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The press got under 90 seconds—for all three meetings—of access. Even the Fox News producers, on their blog, wrote, "the Palin camp went to new lengths to control the media, which is covering the GOP Vice-Presidential nominee":
It was decided by the campaign that today’s meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, and Former Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger would be pooled. This means only one television network with their camera and producer, plus a print reporter, and wire reporters would be let in at the beginning of the meeting and then be ushered out before the leaders and Palin began talking. This is common practice in presidential campaigns, but this morning a little over one hour before the meetings would begin the pool network television producer and print poolers were told they were not allowed to enter the meetings.
This means that the Palin camp has the benefit of pictures of her shaking hands with world leaders and have that video broadcast all over the world, but there would be no risk of her having to answer even one question from a reporter at the beginning of the meetings. It is many television network’s policy, including Fox News Channel to not provide a camera if an editorial presence is not allowed in. Once the campaign realized that these pictures would not be seen they relented, but the print pool is still not allowed to enter the Karzai event.
The Caucus has details on what the media learned during these meetings, but to sum it up, just pleasantries.
Palin will be meeting with, per Politico , "presidents Jalal Talabani of Iraq, Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine, as well as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh" today.
The Post put Todd Palin and baby Trig on the cover--the First Dude and First Baby of Alaska went to Central Park and rode on the merry-go-round. The Palin's daughters Piper and Willow are also in NYC (pregnant daughter Bristol is in Alaska; son Track is in the army in Iraq), and the family headed to FAO Schwarz, the Statue of Liberty and, yes, Ground Zero. One person who saw them at the carousel was taken by the moment, "It was charming...You could see the joy and love."
