While I have been more critical of Sarah Palin in recent days than I was during the 2008 presidential campaign, I still admire the accomplished reformer for her ability to drive liberals crazy without insulting them and to keep her name in the media.  Yesterday, Glenn linked this from Hot Air:

Once again, the former vice presidential nominee has proven she can tilt the political world on its axis in an instant. Last week, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann took their campaigns to Iowa, but it was the news of Palin’s bus tour that really had people talking. She made a simple announcement on her website, and she got all the attention, all the interest.

Today on Hot Air, Ed Morrissey tells us that the media have been grumbling “that Palin’s decision to keep them out of the loop on the tour’s stops have created a dangerous working environment for reporters“, with CBS reporting

Since Palin and her team won’t share where the potential candidate is headed, reporters and producers have little choice but to simply stay close to Palin’s bus. This has resulted in scenes of the Palin bus tooling down the highway followed by a caravan of 10 or 15 vehicles – including a massive CNN bus – all trying to make sure they don’t lose sight of the Palin bus.

It adds up to a dangerous situation, says CBS News Producer Ryan Corsaro.

I can just see the former Alaska governor looking back through tinted glass windows at the caravan of media struggling to keep up with her bus and laughing (a rich, deep, full laugh) at their obsession.  Morrissey offers them a means to spare themselves this dangerous pursuit:  ”Here’s your first option: stop chasing her.  If it truly presents a danger to journalists to drive behind the bus and attempt to keep up, then don’t bother doing it.”  Yeah, but, Ed, as Glenn put it, “She’s living in their heads, rent-free, 24-7.”  Like a jilted boyfriend, they can’t let her go.

In addition to being the official left-wing panty buncher, Sarah Palin may well also serve that role for the MSM.

UPDATE:  I believe the answer to this question is “Yes”: Media wonders: Could Palin be manipulating us?.

UP-UPDATE:  Jeff Goldstein finds that her failure to play by the traditional rules of political travel is. . .

. . . driving the mainstream press to distraction — giving her the media coverage she needs, on her terms, because they just can’t quit her, and because they can’t help but take offense at her audacity in ignoring them, which serves to remind them, uncomfortably, that their cultural significance is based solely on people’s willingness to believe in their power.

If Congressman Anthony Weiner weren’t married, the latest story about the recent tweet from his account should be the biggest non-scandal since a federal judge allegedly found pubic hairs on a can of Coke.

As usual, Jennifer Rubin asks all the right questions about this scandal and makes all the relevant observations:

First, if he lied he’s toast. As embarrassing as a raunchy tweet might have been, the recipient isn’t a minor, and the requisite “allow my wife and I privacy” would probably have been sufficient to quell the storm for a liberal Democrat in a safe seat. It’s a truism that voters will put up with a lot, unless you lie to them.

Exactly. She has more, so just read the whole thing.

To be sure, this kerfuffle does raise (yet again) the issue of media bias.  As per Althouse, “Imagine if Anthony Weiner were a Republican. (I know, it’s such a hackneyed visualization, but it’s important here.) The liberal/lefty blogs would be shredding him mercilessly.”  (Via Instapundit.)

Look, Congressmen are human.  They have the same weaknesses, the same strengths, as the rest of us. If Weiner’s twitter wasn’t hacked, Mr Weiner did something a lot of (single) men do when they’re lonely and longing for human connection.  Not just that, he pulled the tweet within five minutes of releasing it.

That the Democrat is married does, to be sure, add another wrinkle to the story. But, beyond that, the real issue, if indeed he tweeted the picture in question, is that he lied about it.

UPDATE: He’s not answering questions.

From Glenn Reynolds, we get this bit of speculation from Ann Althouse, “Imagine if Anthony Weiner were a Republican. (I know, it’s such a hackneyed visualization, but it’s important here.) The liberal/lefty blogs would be shredding him mercilessly. I’m not saying Weiner’s not getting his hair mussed. But if he were a Republican, the feeding frenzy would be of a different magnitude entirely.”

Well, there’s a more important story in the nets this weekend that’s not getting nearly as much attention as a tweet from Anthony Weiner and that’s a comment by his colleague from the Sunshine State, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the woman Obama tapped to head the Democratic National Committee.  I mentioned this yesterday, but today, let me give you the actual clip:

In response to Harry Smith’s query, where he points out that Medicare could be “could be insolvent in the next decade” and asks if the Democrats had a plan to fix Medicare in light of its looming insolvency, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee responds by attacking Republicans.  She doesn’t tell us what her party would do, but instead tells misrepresents the Republican plan.

If Moderator Harry Smith were like his former CBS colleague Katie Couric and he were dealing with a Republican woman rather than a Democratic one, he would have followed up and pressed her to answer the question.  But that’s not all, no, that’s not all.  After failing to answer whether or not her party had a plan, the DNC chair then had the gall to offer this:

I think Tea Party activists and Republican candidates elected to Congress by the Tea Party are finding that governing is hard. And that, you know, it’s easy to, you know, to– to throw bombs and– and to be incendiary. Not so easy to sit down and actually govern.

Um, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, you’re so committed to repeating your party’s talking points, then you fail to realize you just described your own rhetoric in that very interview. (more…)

Take a gander at Yahoo!’s headlines this morning:

Once again, bad economic news comes, as Glenn Reynolds regularly notes, unexpectedly.

UPDATE:  Guess these folks in the media have just believe that if a Democrat is president, with Congress passing his $800-billion recovery act, the economy must needs recover.

From the AP article Yahoo! linked:

Americans are losing faith that the economy will keep improving, according to a monthly survey.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell to 60.8 from a revised 66 in April, a sign of the toll that high gas prices, a choppy job outlook and a moribund housing market are taking on people’s psyches. Economists had expected an increase to 67. It was the lowest reading since November.

UP-UPDATE: “And who, by the way,” Michael Barone asks

. . . are the “economists” who had expected consumer confidence to rise? Perhaps the Associated Press writers could do a little investigation here and tell us who the economists are who keep getting things wrong. Or will they be content to keep characterizing negative economic trends as “unexpected”?