In 2000, when John McCain was running for President of the United States the first time around, he was the darling of the press corps. The reason why is simple: he gave them absolutely unfettered access to him. The press milled around him on the campaign bus known as the “Straight Talk Express”, where McCain answered tons of questions both on and off the record.

Image Credit: Dan Bennett

Clearly, times have changed.

Yesterday’s announcement that John McCain had decided to suspend his campaign and delay tomorrow’s Presidential Debate is really no surprise. Over the past few weeks, the McCain campaign has grown increasingly hostile to most press outlets, and has become increasingly insular and guarded. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee, has had barely any press contact at all.

Protecting Palin from the Press

When Sarah Palin burst on the scene as John McCain’s running mate the day after the Presidential election, it instantly jolted awake the McCain campaign from its doldrums. Palin is a charismatic figure, and her arrival on the scene produced an almost instant polarization of opinion. Both McCain and Obama’s campaigns raised about the same amount of money over the same period of time as the conservative and liberal base alike reacted to her nomination. A self-proclaimed “pitbull” (with lipstick), Palin rallied the Republican base (which had never warmed to McCain), and threatened to even steal McCain’s thunder after giving a generally well-received speech at the Republican National Convention.

But then, silence. To the press, at least.

To this day, Sarah Palin has not held a press conference, which is unprecedented for a VP selection in modern times. She did not give her first interview until 13 days after her selection, with ABC’s Charlie Gibson. Her second interview came a little less than a week later, with Fox News personality (and McCain supporter) Sean Hannity. Her third interview, with CBS News anchor Katie Couric, aired today. That’s it. In almost a month since being announced as the vice-Presidential nominee, which makes her a potential President of the United States, Sarah Palin has given only three interviews and no press conferences. She’s only answered one question put to her by the press pool that travels with her.

It gets worse. Earlier this week, Sarah Palin met with several world leaders, as well as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. This meeting marked her “international debut”–it was her first time meeting with any foreign dignitary. But even at this event, the campaign continued its hostility to the press. As Shushannah Walshe of Fox News explained:

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, which is about to begin.

Note that the reporters who were shut out were not planning on asking any questions of Palin–they were merely there to report on the events, but the McCain campaign still kept them shut out.

These actions by the McCain campaign are indicative of a disturbing lack of faith in Palin’s ability to sit down and talk with reporters.

Accusations of Bias

One of the reasons that the McCain campaign has given for its increasing hostility towards the press is a complaint that the press is “too biased.” Two days ago, McCain campaign operating officer Steve Schmidt publicly condemned the New York Times, saying “Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization. This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate.”

Now, whether some in the press or any news organization is “biased” is certainly up to interpretation and debate. But the face of the matter in this instance is that it doesn’t matter whether some media outlets have a preference for one candidate or another. They print stories, and the only way to judge what they’re saying is to examine the fact. Besides, no matter how biased, I’ve known enough reporters to know that a scoop matters a lot more than a candidate.

Additionally, the press has been much more openly biased in the past than it is today. Newspapers in the Founding era openly supported one political party or the other, with such partisans digging and exposing secrets such as Alexander Hamilton’s affair with Maria Reynolds and Thomas Jefferson’s affair with Sally Hemmings. If McCain’s campaign is complaining about bias in this day and age, I think it’s safe to say that it wouldn’t have lasted a week back then.

It’s also worth mentioning that in our system today, the President himself leads the charge on enacting a lot of legislation. Should McCain be elected, he would most likely be facing down a Democratic majority in Congress. Given a President McCain’s need to walk through the firepit of an opposition-led Congress, can questions from a few reporters, no matter how biased, even compare to making one’s way through the legislative process? If McCain can’t handle journalists, how can voters expect him to handle Congress?

The Importance of a Free Press

In a letter to Edward Carrington, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that:

The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Jefferson, at the time, was well aware of the excesses of the press. (His character had been excoriated in many a Federalist newspaper, and he certainly gave as good as he got.) But Jefferson was aware that in order to judge the actions of its government, citizens needed as much access to the press as possible. And back in those days, the media was much, much more partisan than it is today.

By arguing that the debates should be delayed, complaining about bias, and virtually cloistering Sarah Palin, the McCain campaign is showing that it is, for whatever reason, afraid of the press. A cynic might say that this means that the McCain campaign is, to a certain extent, afraid of the American people.

I’m not sure I’d go that far, but at the very least, the campaign is showing itself to be mighty insecure. Honestly, what does it have to be afraid of during a press conference? And what does this fear say about McCain and Palin’s ability to govern? In a time when strong leadership is needed in foreign policy, how could we trust John McCain or Sarah Palin to stand up for American interests against the likes of Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-Il when they’re afraid to step up to the mike and take open questions from reporters?

I’d ask these questions of the campaign, but they’re not answering any at the moment.