of professional journalistic standards, and “no one is that stupid.” In a joking aside, Westin added, “All roles of journalists must be played by journalists (duh!).”

Last week on ABC, the role of the journalist was played by a journalist, but otherwise it was on with the show. The network’s headliner was Governor Sarah Palin, of Alaska, the Republican Party’s nominee for Vice-President of the United States. For fourteen days following her nomination, on August 29th, the Governor had appeared at no press conferences and had granted no interviews. (During her media purdah, Senator Joseph Biden, the Democratic Party’s nominee for Vice-President, gave fifty-four interviews or press conferences.) Finally, after negotiations, Palin agreed to receive Gibson in her home state, and to answer his questions. In lavish promotional advertisements,and if you ask that question of many Vice-Presidents, they may have the same answer.”

Perhaps she was thinking of the antebellum period. Since the dawn of the atomic age, of the thirty-one other Vice-Presidential candidates nominated by both major political parties, perhaps only Spiro Agnew, a governor of Maryland, had comparably scant exposure to the world beyond the United States at the time of his selection. However, Agnew did earn a Bronze Star during military service in France and Germany during the Second World War. (His Vice-Presidency ended with his resignation, in 1973—something to do with bribery payments, handed over in brown paper bags.)

Palin is a natural orator, and in television interviews granted before she became a nominee for national office she came across as relaxed, funny, and