taking out the trash

The shocking story about the Palin family that emerged today - no, not the baby, the other shocking story, the one about Todd Palin, Sarah's snowmobile champ husband, and his arrest for drunk driving in 1986 - leads NBC's Mark Murray to ponder if the McCain campaign are dumping all their bad news about Palin at once while everybody is looking in the other direction, namely towards Louisiana and the oncoming storm. 

As ever, the West Wing did it first and they called it 'Take out the trash day'. Here are Josh and Donna to explain:

Donna: What's take out the trash day?

Josh: Any stories we have to give to the press that we're not wild about, we give it all in a lump.

Donna: Why do you do it in a lump?

Josh: Instead of one at a time?

Donna: I'd think you'd want to spread them out.

Josh: They've got x column inches to fill, right? They're going to fill them no matter what.

Donna: Yes.

Josh: So if we give them one story, that story's x column inches.

Donna: And if we give them five stories...

Josh: They're a fifth the size.

Of course, the West Wing is fiction and it doesn't actually take any more column inches to say 'Everything about this candidate stinks' than it does to list the reasons one by one, but we shall see...

• posted by Claudia Jean