National Journal seems to make a bit of a thing out of the fact that Sarah Palin turned down all of CBS's interview requests last week. NJ linked the snub to the fact that Palin famously bombed during her Katie Couric interviews during last year's campaign. (In her book, Palin, without providing any evidence, claims it was biased CBS editing that made her look bad in those extended interviews. Okaaaay)

Here's NJ's Hotline:

Sources tell Hotline OnCall that Couric's producer sent two requests to Palin's publisher for interviews during the “Going Rogue” book tour, and so far, Couric has been denied.

It's not surprising -- Palin has not agreed to sit down with more than a small handful of mainstream media interviewers -- but the move looks to be part of a larger Palin blackout from CBS News and Entertainment.

But here's the thing to remember, and Hotline makes a passing reference to it above, Palin's freezing out all independent Beltway journalists during her book launch. She hasn't agreed to sit down with a single political reporter, even though Palin just wrote a very political book. (The boycott got so bad MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell was forced to elbow her way to the front of a fan rope line in hopes of simply asking Palin a couple questions.)

Can you imagine if Hillary Clinton, for instance, published a book and then refused to sit down with a single non-partisan cable host or a single political reporter from a major newspaper or magazine? Imagine if Clinton only agreed to do interviews with The Nation, Rachel Maddow and Air America? The Beltway press would go berserk mocking Clinton's timidity. But Palin snubs the entire D.C. press corps, and rather than complain, they just keep obsessing over her.

The whole spectacle has been rather pathetic to watch:

-Step 1: Palin launches a new book.

-Step 2: The news media lavish tens of millions of dollars in free publicity on the book.

-Step 3: Palin tells the news media to get lost and drives her book launch tour bus right around the independent press, which never complains. And in fact, it continues to give Palin even more free publicity.

As I asked last week, do journalists enjoy being used by Palin and then completely snubbed?