In fact, Tumulty's candor concerning the Democrat vice presidential candidate being even "less accessible than even Sarah Palin" was rather startling.
But, there it was for all to see (emphasis added):
[T]raveling with Biden during this campaign has sometimes been like reporting on a politician packaged in shrink-wrap. While his windy, off-point pontification was the stuff of legend among his Senate colleagues, Biden is now leashed to a teleprompter even when he is talking in a high school gym that is three-quarters empty. The exposure hound who in recent years appeared more often than any other guest on the Sunday talk shows is a virtual stranger to the small band of reporters on his plane - less accessible than even Sarah Palin is to her traveling pack of bloodhounds. And Biden keeps to a schedule that provides a minimum of off-the-cuff encounters with voters, except across a rope line. [...]
The campaign's caution is understandable. With Obama leading in all the national polls, only a few things would seem to have the potential to throw him off course. One of those things is his running mate. [...]
In the two days that I was aboard his Boeing 737 campaign plane, Biden ventured only a few steps outside his cabin at the front of the plane, which kept him safely away from the reporters at the back. When Biden suddenly appeared at the door to the main cabin, Dallas Morning News reporter Todd Gillman attempted to take a snapshot — a not-uncommon occurrence aboard a campaign plane — and was told by a campaign staffer, "We prefer that you not take photos." According to a blog post by Ryan Corsaro, the CBS News embed on the Biden plane, the candidate has not taken questions from the journalists aboard his plane since Sept. 7.
Kudos to Tumulty for bringing this to our attention.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if more of her colleagues felt obliged to tell the truth now again...if only for appearance's sake.
