Part of Palin's closing argument last night, and the McCain campaign's incessant whining about her supposed unfair treatment, certainly signaled that.

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I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what they've just heard. I'd rather be able to just speak to the American people like we just did.

Team McCain was in full paranoia mode yesterday, going around and accusing CBS and Katie Couric of editing the Palin interview to make her look worse than she really was, a great feat if it were actually true. I think this frontal assault signals that McCain will relegate her to the right-wing talk show circuit for the rest of the race, hoping that her adequate performance last night (coupled with her fiery, condescending speech in Minneapolis-St.Paul) will be what voters remember about her.

If there's one thing we've learned about Governor Palin, it's that she can read a teleprompter and recall memorized taking points just fine. But when she's actually challenged to think on her feet (like in the Couric and Gibson interviews), she falters about as badly as a politican could falter.

While it may be a wise strategy for McCain to stash her away for for the next 32 days, it's transparently laughable to claim that somehow the traditional media "filter" is the problem here.