“After making attacks on what she memorably labeled ‘the lamestream media’ one of her signature issues, Sarah Palin has started to experiment with a new strategy toward the press — engaging it.

“The former Alaska governor has started cautiously cooperating with some of the same media outlets she and her supporters have accused of unfair and inaccurate coverage they feel has caricatured her as a flaky lightweight — a narrative her team seems determined to rewrite as Palin openly weighs a bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination…

“Palin has made it clear that she sees the limits of communicating exclusively through conservative media, bristling when her sometime critic, veteran GOP consultant Karl Rove, questioned whether her reality show on the TLC network, ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska,’ befitted a potential presidential candidate.

“That show, she said on Fox, is a way to reach viewers beyond what she called ‘the choir’ of Fox viewers, explaining ‘we need to get out there and reach people who are so independent that perhaps they would never think to tune into Fox News.'”

***
“Sarah Palin is the woman who must not be named. She’s that dangerous, but also equally reviled. No person anywhere else in the cosmos of politics, culture or celebrity has caused such a stir…

“The fact remains that Sarah Palin put the Tea Party on the map and pushed their presence and validated them through victory after victory. Never mind there is no one else on planet earth who could get 10,000 fans to Searchlight, NV, a tiny spot in the desert that is hours away from anything. Considering the Tea Party will own the House come January, bringing into Washington the most conservative body we’ve seen in decades, which has also changed the behavior of establishment Republicans because of the Tea Party rise, Sarah Palin would not have been simply a raucously interesting selection, but an honest selection.

“However, choosing Sarah Palin as ‘Person of the Year’ is more a Newsweek – Jon Meacham thing to do, for marketing purposes, if nothing else. It’s something that simply wouldn’t happen with Tina Brown now in charge, with TIME magazine too stuffy to admit that in 2010 it was Sarah Palin who rocked everyone’s world.”

***