She has been caught up in what a friend of mine (he attributes the term to someone else in R politics) calls "the Ball Scratchers."  They are beltway Republican staff/politicos who drift from campaign to campaign sowing ruin. First: They are filling Palin's head with all the things she can't say or do.  Second: They are filling her head with their half baked focus group ideas about what she should be saying. Third: They are making her afraid of the press when she should be letting loose on the press. 

Instead of letting her be herself, they are molding her into their automaton.  Hence the "I'll get back to you" answer to Couric on McCain's regulatory record.  They probably sighed because she didn't recite a list they had created or something and lectured her disappointingly afterward.  Instead, she should have used her conservative instincts.  "Katie, this is not about a list of McCain regulatory achievements.  This is about John being right about Fannie and Freddie and Barack being wrong.  While John was fighting to prevent the catastrophe we are dealing with now, Barack was collecting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the people responsible for this catastrophe."  She shouldn't be sucking up to the media.  People hate the media.  She should be zinging them.  They are not going to be nice anyway so why bother trying to be helpful.   

But all the scratchers are telling her is to "not make mistake" and "stick to the talking points" which are often so lame because they lack original thought or any grasp what real people think and admire.  These are people who read a horrible article and point to one halfway decent quote as an accomplishment.  They are know it all know nothings but they are good at one thing, they have this ability to intimidate people of real achievement.  Instead of giving her clips from TownHall, National Review,and WSJ they give her Washington Post and NY Times articles as briefing material.  I could go on. 

I cannot believe she is not up to the task.  She has fire and she has wit.  They need to cut her loose and let her fire away and be herself.  She is a real person.  The ball scratchers are only real people in their own minds.