Is Sarah Palin a Leader or a Hostage?

Commentators from Campbell Brown to Bill Kristol have pleaded with Sarah Palin’s handlers to “free” her.  First, Brown said that the McCain campaign’s treatment of her has been sexist because they won’t let her talk.  I disagreed, believing that her sequestration had nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with idiophobia.  Palin was later gracious enough to prove me right.

Writing in the Times today, Bill Kristol says that

McCain needs to liberate his running mate from the former Bush aides brought in to handle her — aides who seem to have succeeded in importing to the Palin campaign the trademark defensive crouch of the Bush White House. McCain picked Sarah Palin in part because she’s a talented politician and communicator. He needs to free her to use her political talents and to communicate in her own voice.

Is Sarah Palin being held against her will?  Is this strong leader — this governor who is ready to be president on a moment’s notice, ready to face down Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — too weak to tell the former Bush aides “handling her” what’s what? Who’s in charge here, the handlers or the potential leader of the free world?

Imagine the tire marks on the back of whatever campaign flunky told Barack Obama, Joe Biden or John McCain not open their mouths because of fear that they’d say something stupid.