Sarah Palin to address Republican convention tonight (topless?)

First-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, catapulted onto the national political stage last week when Republican John McCain chose her as his running mate, addresses the Republican National Convention and a prime-time national television audience tonight..

In advance of the speech, McCain’s campaign fired back today at news media inquiries into the vetting process before her selection, calling them a “faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee” for vice president.

“The McCain campaign will have no further comment about our long and thorough process,” said campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, lashing out at “the old boys’ network” that he says runs media organizations. “This nonsense is over.”

New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who speaks to the delegates before Palin, defended her against charges of inexperience. “Barack Obama has never governed a city, never governed a state, never governed an agency, never run a military unit, never run anything,” he said on CBS. “Sarah Palin has been a mayor. She’s been a governor. She has a record of reform. She has a record of leadership. She’s run a budget. So, why are all these questions for her? Has anybody ever asked Barack Obama, ‘Can you bring up your two kids and be president of the United States?’ They are asking, ‘Can she be vice president and be a mother?’ Come on.”

The McCain campaign plans to echo that message in an ad to be aired today arguing that Palin’s executive experience over the last 21 months — overseeing thousands of state employees, 14 agencies and Alaska’s $10-billion budget — have better prepared her for the vice presidential role than Democrat Barack Obama’s tenure as a junior senator.

The Obama campaign dismissed the McCain camp’s efforts to make executive experience the template.

“Look, if executive experience is truly important on the Republican side maybe she should run for president and John McCain should be her vice president,” said communications director Robert Gibbs, dismissing the ad’s premise as “borderline ridiculous.”

- from LAtimes