Sarah “Pussy” Palin, craven understudy leader of the free world, remains too chickenshit to face the public without a script written by somebody else, raising serious questions about her ability to answer a 3 p.m. call from David Gregory, much less a 3 a.m. alarm about Vladimir Putin.

John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will all be appearing on the Sunday chatterfests today. Cuddles Wallace held open a slot for Palin, but she had a nervous fit and will be flying back to Alaska to shoot things that don’t shoot back. “She calls herself a pit bull, but she’s acting like a poodle,” says a well-placed blogger, speaking on condition that the neighbors turn down their fucking TV at night.

We’re now in Day 10 of Pussy Palin’s Campaign of Zen, and desperate acolytes are searching for something, anything, to prove to doubters that she’s capable of speaking her mind, and not her speechwriter’s.

Perhaps this will tide us over:

“Turning maybe purple in the state means, to me, it’s more independent, it’s not the obsessive partisanship that gets in the way of doing what’s right for this state, and I think on a national level that’s what we’re gonna see,” Palin said about Obama’s prospects in Alaska before aliens abducted her. “I’m a mom, and my son is going to get deployed in September, and we better have a real clear plan for this war. And it better not have to do with oil and dependence on foreign energy.”

We feel better now. She said that only a few weeks ago.

Palin on Obama [New Yorker]

Remember that scene in Fargo? No, not that one. The nice little moment where Frances McDormand’s husband is preoccupied with entering the federal duck-stamp painting competition.

The competition is real. Every year, duck hunters need to buy a license before heading out to do an Elmer on Daffy. And every year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issues a Migratory Bird Conservation and Hunting Stamp for the purpose.

Joe Hautman of Plymouth, Minnesota, won this year’s competition. He’s one of “those Hautmans,” the brothers Norm Gunderson frets about to Margie.

The stamp looks like a postage stamp: Beautiful waterfowl painting. Dollar amount. And the toll-free number for a phone-sex service.

Oops.

Not Joe’s fault, just some dyslexia in the layout department. The number to buy more stamps is 1-800-782-6724, but someone typed it as 1-800-872-6724.

No big deal. The first translates as 1-800-STAMP24. The second is 1-800-TRAMP24.

Duck Stamp includes phone-sex number [StarTribune.com]

Looks like Nancy Wilson will have to get in line, because “Barracuda” ain’t the only thing the Geezer stole last night.

As he spoke, a number of images appeared on the Plasma of Liberty behind him. And the folks behind one those images aren’t happy.

TPM has been following the big story all day: a photo of a white building wasn’t Walter Reed Medical Center (as presumed), but Walter Reed Middle School in Los Angeles.

“Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school’s picture an endorsement of any political party or view,” said Principal Donna Tobin.

California dems are staging a press conference there any moment.

Meanwhile, second-string scandal-monger Daily Kos has identfied at least four photos from the Geezer’s video intro that came from an online stock-photo agency. (Good shots, good prices — we use them all the time.) What the Kos Kiddies find intriguing about the selections is that they feature black people, who otherwise were MIA during the convention.

School Raps McCain For Using Image As Speech Backdrop Without Permission [TPM]

McCain Winning Coveted “Stock Photos” Demographic? [Kos]

“I feel completely fucked over.”

Nancy Wilson to Entertainment Weekly, after the McCain campaign shoplifted Heart’s “Barracuda” this week. Sarah “Pussy” Palin, understudy leader of the free world, was too chickenshit to respond.

Heart’s Nancy Wilson responds to McCain campaign’s use of ‘Barracuda’ at Republican convention [EW]

“For the complete story on Sarah Palin – including how her family deals with Trig’s condition, and how they are embracing Bristol’s pregnancy – pick up this week’s PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.”

Well, that’s nice, and it’ll certainly make our next visit to Ralphs more entertaining while we suffer that idiot writing a check ahead of us in line.

And for now, that’s all we’ll hear from Sarah Palin in her own words.

It’s been a week, and the Republican nomineee for Vice President of the United States has not spoken in an unscripted or uncontrolled setting. She hasn’t held a press conference. She hasn’t chatted with the boys in the back of the Straight Talk Express. Heck, she hasn’t even shown up in the warm confines of a Fox News studio.

What’s she afraid of? Is the future understudy leader of the free world too scared to talk to even cuddly Chris Wallace? (Stay tuned on that.)

To be fair, she’ll be busy — she has thirty fundraisers scheduled over the next sixty days. (Not for the campaign, which is sucking at the public teat this fall, but the RNC and state parties.) But if Barry can face down Papa Bear, surely she can drop by Chris Matthews to show us who has the hardballs.

Unless she’s a chickenshit. Are you a chickenshit, Sarah Palin? Because we just said you are — all talk, no stick. And we think you’re too chickenshit to prove us wrong.

Sarah Palin Talks About Her Family Struggles [People]

When Will Palin Meet the Press? [Newsweek]

Chuck Jones gets all the attention — for Bugs, for Road Runner, for the Grinch — but our unsung childhood hero is Bill Melendez, the animator who brought Peanuts to life.

Things could have gone terribly wrong: the network wanted a laugh track, the network wanted adults to voice the kids, the network wanted anything other than jazz on the soundtrack. But Melendez and Sparky Schulz stuck to their guns, insisting that their way was the only way it would work.

And so they created “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”, and we slept in Charlie Brown sheets and pillowcases for years. Robert Smigel — Triumph, all those SNL shorts — calls the Christmas special “the greatest half-hour American TV has ever produced.”

Bill Melendez died Tuesday, at age 91.

Bill Melendez, 91; Award-Winning ‘Peanuts’ Animator [WaPo]