Applying For A Job By Skipping The Interviews.

From The Caucus in the New York Times:

Since Senator John McCain named her as his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has faced tough questions over her foreign policy experience. In an interview earlier this month with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, she also acknowledged that she had never met a head of state. Today that is about to change.

Governor Palin is in New York for the opening session of the United Nations and over the course of the next two days will meet with an array of foreign leaders and policy experts. Today she sits down with Prsident Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

On Wednesday she plans to speak with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko. She then will meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

(JackRabbit Café editor's note: Again today, the free press-averse Palin--who will gladly trot out the whole damn family at pre-arranged, friendly rallies that pose no threat of questions--is being shielded from anything approaching a Q & A with journalists by the McCain information ministers.

The campaign finally relented and allowed a CNN producer into the U.N. meetings in addition to the standard pool photographer, but that was only after the TV networks had to threaten to ban any use of pictures and video if an editorial presence continued to be disallowed.

Why more Americans are not outraged at this avoidance of our free press is further proof to me that voters with blind allegiance and simple minds survive on whatever talking points they are fed.)           

The Times’s Nate Schweber was on hand for Ms. Palin’s arrival in New York City last night. He reports that the Secret Service shut down the street surrounding her Times Square hotel, temporarily stranding some restaurants patrons. Mr. Schweber filed this dispatch:

“When police, for security reasons, refused to allow people to leave a nearby restaurant shortly before Ms. Palin’s arrival, many were not at all happy about it. Instead of the cheering throngs of supporters waving lipsticks and adoring signs that Ms. Palin has become accustomed to on the campaign trail, she was met by the equivalent of a Bronx cheer.”