Sarah Palin Drives the Media

Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin is driving the media crazy and she gets props for that from me.  As she takes her bus tour around the country, the media is feeling slighted because she isn't keeping them informed or talking to them.  She only talked to us for three minutes!  screams this NYT piece.   The New York Times notes:

It was a surreal situation given the fact that Ms. Palin and her advisers had shown an almost complete contempt for the press corps and its usual rituals. But the grumbling among the press corps notwithstanding, reporters and camera crews continued to follow her across three states and hundreds of miles over the long holiday weekend.

Why should she have anything but contempt for the press corps when that's all they've ever held for her?  Because she's a candidate?  She's not.  Not so far as we know, anyway.  Why should she make herself available to them?  Because she might run for president?

MSNBC pouts that Palin was a "no-show" at the Gettysburg battlefield, even though, as others have noted, she never announced plans to go there:

Palin was a no-show for several hundred supporters, celebrity-watchers and media who turned out in hopes of seeing her at the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg on Monday. She and her entourage arrived at a hotel outside the town late in the day and spoke to a smaller group of people gathered there.

A non-story.  But for a non-story, it's at the top of Memeorandum.  Palin's travels are all over Twitter (even with its own hashtag: #wherespalin).  Savvy political move or just a family vacation?

The only thing that is certain right now is that Palin is in a big, bright bus traveling the country with her family.   The press is hovering because they are consumed with Palin and there might be a story if she decides to announce along the way.  If she decides to announce her candidacy in the 2012 race they all want to be there.

And why is that?