John McCain and Sarah Palin took a beating yesterday in the most important public forum there is… television.
 

Z on TV from the Baltimore Sun takes us along the rocky ride. The down spiral started with Palin’s interview with CBS News’ and University of Virginia alum Katic Couric (the first part of which can be found above).
 

My favorite gaffe occurred when Couric pushed Palin on ways in which McCain has reformed government and Wall Street and pushed for regulation. Palin talked in circles, spewing concepts like maverick and party lines, but never landed on any examples. Couric pushed Palin saying, “I’m just going to ask one more time, not to belabor the point, specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.” Finally Palin gave up: “I’ll try to find you some, and I’ll bring them to ya.” You know she went straight home to Google the answer.

McCain, too, did an interview with Couric yesterday (can you say damage control?), which only brought down the soul-crushing wrath of David Letterman. McCain had canceled on the late night host when he suspended his campaign to supposedly “rush” back to Washington to solve this financial crisis. If rush back, he meant saunter over to the CBS studios, that is exactly what he did. Poor Johnny… Letterman spared him no punches, even having in-house CBS cameras monitor McCain’s preparations for his Couric interview.
 

Forget the economic bailout, someone needs to bailout the floundering McCain campaign.