Praise for Palin

Some people are apparently figuring out that the Governor of Alaska isn’t so dumb after all.

The biggest knock on Sarah Palin has been her supposed failure to give press conferences; in fact, that is what she was lampooned for in Saturday night’s SNL appearance. CBS News was apparently the first to notice that of the four national-ticket members, Palin is actually the most accessible to the press:

In the past two days alone, Palin has answered questions from her national press corps on three separate occasions. On Saturday, she held another plane availability, and on Sunday, she offered an impromptu press conference on the tarmac upon landing in Colorado Springs. A few minutes later, she answered even more questions from reporters during an off-the-record stop at a local ice cream shop.

By contrast, Biden hasn’t held a press conference in more than a month, and Obama hasn’t taken questions from his full traveling press corps since the end of September.

(Via InstaPundit.) The Dems will have to come up with a new talking point, I guess.

Meanwhile, Palin is getting rave reviews from some unlikely sources. The New York Times’ left-wing “style” critic, Alessandra Stanley, wrote:

Ms. Palin’s delightful performance on Saturday stood out from the efforts of other politicians who have made fun of themselves on the NBC late-night comedy show.

I’ve never seen Alec Baldwin perform, but I’ve always assumed he is a complete jerk because of his threat to leave the U.S. if George Bush was elected President. The threat (or promise, as the case may be) proved empty, but my wife has told me that he isn’t such a bad guy. Here’s evidence to that effect:

“When you come on a show like that, you are prepared in advance to get worked over. Palin knew that. Palin came on to be a good sport. And she was. She was polite, gracious. (More so than some of the famous actors who come through there, believe me.)” Baldwin wrote in a blog on The Huffington Post. …

Baldwin, who co-stars with Fey on the TV comedy “30 Rock”, said several political commentators had criticized “Saturday Night Live” for giving Palin a spot on the show fearing it would sway voters on Election Day, November 4.

“You’re kidding, right? The woman is the vice presidential nominee of one of the two major parties in this country. Don’t put her on SNL? With all of her exposure and the Tina Fey performance? What reality are you in?,” Baldwin wrote.

Good question! It’s another example of liberal arrogance: it’s fine for a television show to ridicule Sarah Palin week after week, but somehow out of bounds to give her an opportunity to appear in person, obviously for fear that if people actually see her, some of them will like her.

All of which suggests that this might have been one of those rare instances where I was wrong.

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