Press Now Barred From Talking To Palin Supporters

Yet another bar has been lowered in the 2008 Presidential political campaign — or, in this case, the Vice Presidential campaign which in this case is controlled by a Presidential campaign:

Constantly under the watchful eyes of security, the media wasn’t permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park to talk to Sarah Palin supporters. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, “Can I help you?” and turn the person around.

When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn’t allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written. The campaign wanted to avoid that possibility Monday.

This item from the St. Petersburg Times should be troubling to all Americans. Since when is the press barred from talking to a candidate’s SUPPORTERS? So now Palin is kept under tight wraps by the McCain campaign, giving interviews to a few select mainstream media reporters plus softball p.r. type interviews for Fox News’ mega-partisan talker Sean Hannity…while the press is barred from talking to her supporters.

This is how new standard operating procedure is created. In 2004 the press had lots of stories about how people were screened to enter and in some cases kicked out of George Bush’s political events. Now it’s come down to the press being barred from talking to a candidate’s supporters. And the irony is that speeches at these events will talk about defending freedom….

The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan writes:“This is not America. And it’s a chilling preview of how Putin-like a Palin-McCain administration would be.”