Sarah Palin and the Politics of Winging It

You betcha it did — as evidenced by the all-terrain coverage that, true to precedent, trailed Sarah Palin wherever she motored last week.

But how dare she disregard the media like that?

That was a subtext of so much of the press grumbling that followed Ms. Palin and her family as they zigzagged through a Northeast itinerary of “biker caravanning” (at a veterans’ motorcycle rally), historic sightseeing (Gettysburg, etc.), office politicking (the headquarters of her employer, Fox News) and Donald Trump (his own category). By “winging it,” or at least not telling journalists where she was headed next and leading them on what some called a “wild goose chase,” Ms. Palin once again showed contempt for a class of people she plainly despises.

“I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media,” Ms. Palin said in an interview aboard her bus with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News.

Ms. Van Susteren’s husband, John Coale, a longtime Democratic fund-raiser who became a Palin friend in 2008, marveled at the media’s nerve. “They have trashed her every which way, and they still expect to be kowtowed to?” he said.

You could argue — as many exasperated bus-chasers argued — that dispensing the most basic of logistical information would not fall under the category of “kowtowing.” Rather, they would say, it would fall somewhere between common courtesy and rudimentary public relations.

But whatever. This is all part of the familiar Palin approach. Call it “The Politics of Doing Whatever the Heck I Want.” There she went again, disrespecting the almighty “process,” playing by her own rules and seeming not to give a flying hoot what anyone thought about it. That included the so-called key Republicans, party insiders and self-important activists whom she also seemed to ignore en route. These are many of the same people who trashed Ms. Palin’s bus tour as ill-conceived and disorganized in (often anonymous) comments to the wild-goose-chasers.

These are many of the same usual suspects who complained that Ms. Palin had breached campaign decorum by showing up in New Hampshire last week on the very day Mitt Romney was formally announcing his presidential campaign there. Never mind that Mr. Romney has essentially been running for president for six years (or since kindergarten). He had designated Thursday as his “announcement day,” and, the decorum police felt, the rest of the field was obliged to stay out of the way in deference to the “unwritten rule” that says Mr. Romney should have the stage to himself on these special occasions. Likewise, the political media was obliged to treat Mr. Romney’s impeccably choreographed non-news event as a news event. And everyone pretty much abided by their designated “unwritten rules;” everyone except Mrs. Palin, for whom “unwritten rules” are just another category of the political orthodoxy to run over like roadkill.

What was most striking about the bus odyssey was the apparent relish Ms. Palin seemed to take in driving reporters nuts. While there have been numerous media-loathing politicians over the years, no possible candidate of Ms. Palin’s wattage has so blatantly blown off (or actively thwarted) the trailing press corps to the degree that she did.

This resulted in some comic spectacles that included Ms. Palin’s using her bus as a decoy at the back entrance of a hotel in Pennsylvania so she could slip out a side entrance; or encountering a Sarah Palin impersonator in Boston and instructing her to “go talk to all these reporters” on her behalf.

Why does Ms. Palin behave this way? The simplest answer is, “because she can.” Despite her scorn for much of the press corps — a scorn not infrequently reciprocated — they covered her anyway. It brings to mind the oft-stated belief that if the press really wanted to punish Ms. Palin, they would ignore her. “What’s the sound of an 18-wheeler when not trailed by a caravan of reporters?” asked Mark Salter, a longtime aide to Senator John McCain and top adviser to the McCain-Palin campaign of 2008. “The answer is silence.”

Not likely anytime soon, in other words, wherever Ms. Palin turns up next.

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I.M.F. Chief’s Arrest Throws French Politics Into Disarray

PARIS — For months, France has been buzzing with speculation that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the popular chief of the International Monetary Fund, would quit his job in Washington to take on President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections. On Sunday, French politicians and media met news of his arrest in New York for alleged sexual aggression with stunned disbelief and expressions of national humiliation. The incident threw Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s political party, the Socialists, into confusion and set the stage for a new political calculus that could allow the National Front, the far-right party led by its founder’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, to become a more dominant force during the election campaign.

Even as pollsters cautioned against rushing to judgment and as Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said his client “will plead not guilty,” his would-be rivals were quick to declare his political death.

“He’s definitely discredited,” Ms. Le Pen said Sunday on French television. “The case and the charges mark the end of his campaign for the presidency, and will likely prompt the IMF to ask him to leave his post.”

?Bernard Debré, a lawmaker in Mr. Sarkozy’s center-right UMP party, told French television that the arrest was “a humiliation and an affront to the honor of France. Everyone will now say, ‘Look at what the French do.’ " Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s political career, he added, “must be ended — he will be condemned.”

Fran?ois Bayrou, a centrist politician who ”lost to Mr. Sarkozy in the last race, said he was amazed. “If the accusations turn out to be true — and even if they are proved false — this is a degrading thing” for France, he said.

Leaders of the Socialist party pleaded with the public to withhold judgment until more facts emerged about his arrest in connection with the alleged sexual attack of a maid at a Manhattan hotel Saturday afternoon.

Ségolène Royal, a leading member of the party who also lost to Mr. Sarkozy in France’s last presidential election, called the charges “staggering” but said he was innocent until proven guilty. She cautioned against turning the situation “into a political soap opera.” The Socialist party leader, Martine Aubry, said she was “stupefied” by the news and called for an emergency meeting of party leaders for Monday.

The head of France’s Christian Democratic party, Christine Boutin, went further, suggesting that amid the atmosphere of France’s presidential campaign, Mr. Strauss-Kahn may have been set up. ? “I really believe that somebody set a trap for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to fall into,” she told French television. “That he could be taken in like that seems astounding, so he must have been trapped.”

In any event, Mr. Sarkozy may not benefit, political analysts say. Over 60 percent of French voters do not want the president to run again in next year’s race, recent polls show. Francois Hollande, a former chief of the Socialist party, has been steadily rising in opinion polls, in part because his down-to-earth image contrasts with the more flamboyant Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Strauss-Kahn, said Stéphàe Rozès, a public opinion expert and president of Cap, a consultancy.

If Mr. Strauss-Kahn is out of the picture, he said, Mr. Hollande has a chance of making it into a presidential run-off and face not Mr. Sarkozy but Ms. Le Pen, which he believes would be a ticket to the presidency. It would also confirm the steady rise in the popularity ratings of Ms. Le Pen 10 years after her father faced off with Jacques Chirac in the 2002 presidential election. And it could move the National Front from the margins of the political arena to its center at a time when far-right, anti-immigrant and anti-European parties are making gains across Europe.

Elaine Sciolino contributed reporting from Paris.