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Until Sarah Palin arrived on the scene, John McCain's quest for the White House seemed flat as a pancake. Even now, McCain's audiences shrink unless Palin is beside him on stage. Then crowds lustily chant, "Sarah! Sarah!"

Does being upstaged by Palin, 44, bother McCain, 72? Of course not. He desperately wants to be president, and if Palin helps him land the job, so be it.

One political wag jokingly suggested that McCain should retreat to one of his seven or eight houses (the number remains uncertain) and let Palin do the campaigning. According to this scenario, she should rely on scripted speeches and avoid media encounters.

She inevitably has to throw the media an occasional crumb such as her interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. But these crumbs should be rare.

All of the above, while a joke, could be a winning formula. For as journalist Todd Purdom explained on PBS's "Washington Week in Review": "We love our politicians for their stories, not for their 10-point plans."

Palin's story is undeniably fascinating: A little-known governor of Alaska, a "gun-packing, hockey-playing woman" (Karl Rove's description); a former beauty queen and TV sports announcer; a mother of five; a small-town mayor who inquired about banning books; a member of a church that uses prayer to convert homosexuals to go straight ("Pray away the gays").

This is riveting stuff. But what about her "10-point plan"? Meaning issues such as:

"If you became president, Governor Palin, what would your policy be toward Iran? North Korea? Israel? (Her church seeks to convert Jews to Jesus.) How would you deal with Vladimir Putin?

"And what is your plan for rescuing the sagging economy? How would you reconcile your differences with McCain about stem cell research (he favors it, you don't)? What is your plan for saving the environment? And how do you reconcile it with off-shore drilling and more drilling in Alaska?

McCain, Obama and Biden are constantly asked these tough questions and answer them with agility. All three are knowledgeable about national and international issues confronting presidents and vice presidents.

But McCain's campaign has suggested that Palin, unlike the other candidates, should not have to undergo a similar grilling. Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, told "Fox News Sunday" that the media should show Palin "deference."

To which columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote in The Washington Post: "Deference? That's a word used in monarchies or aristocracies. Democracies don't give 'deference' to politicians. When have McCain, Obama, Biden or, for that matter Hillary Clinton, asked for deference?"

Of course. Why should one standard apply to Palin and another to McCain, Obama and Biden? I strongly suspect McCain's handlers fear she may stumble if questioned, unscripted, about complex national and international issues.

Yet the media have every right to ask her probing questions about herself, her qualifications and her views on complicated issues. This is a democracy and citizens deserve to know their leaders. The media's role is to deliver that information.

And one more thing. Her campaign should stop yelling "sexist" every time Obama or Biden use gender-related words. Obama's remark about putting "lipstick on a pig" prompted her campaign to cry "sexist." Yet McCain used those identical words when referring to Hillary Clinton.

So let's declare a moratorium on cries of "sexist." It's getting boring. Besides, Palin is no shrinking violet. She was called "Sarah Barracuda" as a high school basketball player, and she still plays hardball. She lobs sharp words at Obama and Biden, and they should feel free to lob them right back without being denounced as "sexist."

Americans have less than two months to get to know Palin. McCain's handlers are rightly giving her a crash course in national and international issues before she faces her first unscripted interview this week on national television.

For McCain's campaign manager to tell the media to show her "deference" implies she is unprepared for high office. Palin should be questioned with the same rigor and intensity as McCain, Obama and Biden.

We women insist we want to be treated with equality, not by a double standard. That rule should apply to Sarah Palin, candidate for vice president, too.

Rosemary Roberts writes a Friday column. E-mail; rmroberts@triad.rr.com.