You Republicans are so predictable. This move is directly out of your well-worn playbook. You resort to media bashing every time you look bad or start to lose, just like you start accusing Democrats of being unpatriotic pinko leftist commie socialists who raise taxes and spend big and commit voter fraud in every election (meanwhile, Republicans socialize the losses of Big Business and privatize the gains; slash taxes on the wealthiest in a time of war; start with a huge surplus from Clinton, blow through it in Bush’s first year in office and proceed to drive up the deficit into the stratosphere; and commit voter suppression again and again as well as voter registration fraud, registering thousands of people as Republicans without their knowledge to name but one of their crimes.)
Palin has all but said that if we elect Obama we’re installing a terrorist in the White House. She’s lied repeatedly about matters trivial (the teleprompter malfunctioned!) and great, even after her lies have been exposed. She blithely denies unethical conduct in violating the public trust even after a bipartisan group in her state released a report that concluded she had done so.
She and the McCain campaign have done such a good job of trashing her image that they needed no help at all from the media, who treated her as the Next Big Thing when she burst on the scene. The campaign kept her under wraps because they knew very well she’d embarrass herself if anyone with a brain had a chance to ask follow-up questions (as she went on to do) and the inevitable result was that her image was quickly set in concrete by Tina Fey.
Palin and the Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for the liability she has proved to be to the campaign. But we’ll see signs of porcine aviation before we hear a Republican take responsibility for any of their mistakes, lies or wrongdoing. It’s just not in the playbook.

I think this country has become so divisive – it is only hurting our country…I hope that no matter who is elected President everyone (Democrats, Republicans, and Independents) will work together to solve these deep complicated issues and problems our nation is facing…enough partisanship! We must come together or everyone will LOSE…nevertheless, I must agree with Drew…if Gov. Sarah Palin had made this comment as Sen. Joe Biden did…the news would of clobbered her…which is very disturbing!

all speculation.
a few things worth noting:
1. i believe the challenge was tossed out there for conservative whiners to name the last president who wasn’t challenged with some crisis at the get-go. still no takers?
2. toe the line! michele is always there to whine about the “liberal” media when her candidate gets slapped around, but amazingly absent when democrats are the target.
3. the story has been reported in the boston globe, fox news, nyt, associated press, cbs news, wsj, forbes, afp, miami herald, slate, abc news… i guess it’s not enough for you unless it’s looped like the wright clips.
4. here we get an insight into how mccain has been given passes by the msm, such as on his major snafu (made more than once) of confusing sunni and shiites:

And the, the question is, did he just sort of–he truncated it to the point where he ended up misspeaking. The, the problem, of course, McCain has is that he can’t, you know, he doesn’t want to make it so that he, he forgot it for a minute. You know, he’s–because of the age issue, he can’t ever look like he’s having a senior moment. So instead, he’s better off going ahead and saying, you know, OK, so he misspoke. Even if he gets dinged on the experience stuff, “Oh, he says he’s Mr. Experience. Doesn’t he know the difference between this stuff?” He’s got enough of that in the bank, at least with the media, that he can get away with it. I mean, the irony to this is had either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama misspoke like that, it’d have been on a running loop, and it would become a, a big problem for a couple of days for them. — http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23766063/page/5/

5) and then they admit how mccain is a media darling:
“I think every last reporter would move to Massachusetts and marry John McCain if they could.” — joe scarborough (msnbc)
“I know it shouldn’t be happening, but it is. I’m falling for John McCain.” — charles lane (new republic)
“The press loves McCain. We’re his base.” — chris matthews (msnbc)
“John McCain is clearly the Washington media’s favorite Republican.” — brit hume (fox news)
“The media, of course, loves John McCain because it seems like he’s back to the old John McCain.” — david shuster (msnbc)
6) the nation (www.thenation.com/doc/20080707/alterman) has a great article that goes into depth of all of the polish and shine that the media has put on mccain, some of the many free passes given to the media darling mccain, and a few of the gushing remarks made by his smitten media talking heads.

eric dezenhall attributes mccain’s recent jekyll-hyde transformation to his fall from media darling at
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-13/how-the-media-betrayed-mccain/
and then jekyll was back to grill up some bbq for the press that the right vilifies (edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/03/mccain.bbq/index.html). if you can’t beat them, feed them and schmooze them.