"What are they trying to hide?" needs to be the constant refrain of Dem. surrogates ... in any interviews with the media or even on the stump, befriending the media and taking their side .... emphasizing that we have only 60 days to do a full review of this relative unknown that John McCain judged to be best qualified to assume the Presidency, in his stead.

Talking points...

• The reporting on the pregnancy *did* go overboard, but was likely a result of the campaign's hiding the information at the time Palin was introduced to the country.
  
  
• The Republican attack against the media is just a variation of the "best defense is a great offense" approach. The McCain campaign only has to cow the media into backing off a bit, delaying and denying access, to allow their VP candidate to sneak unquestioned and untested through the next 60 days.
  
  
• The McCain campaign, it appears, is going to follow the Bush/Rove approach of staged town halls and speeches, and will likely allow a small number of interviews with friendly media, where they can set the ground rules, as we've seen in the past -- such as demanding a list of questions, in advance. (I'm sure Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly will be happy to squeeze Gov. Palen in.)
  
  
• Gov. Palin and Sen. Biden will be debating on Oct. 2nd, but, given the restrictive formats and limited time typically seen in (Vice)Presidential debates, the debate cannot be considered a substitute for the traditional media vetting of a candidate.
  
  
• Senators McCain and Biden have been in the public eye for decades and have been through a few Presidential campaigns, each; while Sen. Obama has been on the national stage for over 4 years and under intense scrutiny as a Presidential contender for more than 2 years. Sen. McCain introduced Gov. Palin to a national audience just 7(N) days ago, and appears to be obstructing the review to which every serious contender for the White House need be subjected. In the simplest sense, is there something that John McCain is trying to hide? The only way to answer the question is to make Gov. Palin openly available to the news media, to get done in 60 days what everyone else on the tickets have been going through for 2+ years.
  
  
• Sen. McCain was the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee for over 6 months, but having made a last-minute choice for running mate, Sen. McCain has only given the American people 60 days to learn about a relatively unknown candidate before they have to cast their votes for the country's next President. It is possible that it could be Gov. Palin putting her hand on a bible next January 20th, 2009, to be sworn-in as President. The voters will not be able to make an informed decision, November 4th, on Gov. Palin's ability to judge our priorities and confront our international adversaries if they haven't even seen her take on the news media.
  
  
• Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are proclaiming that they want to bring reform and transparency to Washington, but they turned their backs on transparency less than 7 days after forming their ticket. To demonstrate their commitment to transparency and reform, Sen. McCain needs to make Gov. Palin openly available to news media requests for interviews, and Gov. Palin needs to instruct her lawyers and surrogates to discontinue any actions that could be viewed as obstruction of the ongoing ethics investigation, in Alaska, related to Gov. Palin.

The media needs to be pushed to grow a backbone, and then McCain needs to be either challenged or shamed into allowing media access to his running mate.