CNN also breathlessly reported this weekend that GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin is, in the words of one adviser to John McCain, “going rogue.“

Not surprisingly, there is NOT A SINGLE NAMED SOURCE for these statements. CNN contines the accelerating downward spiral of traditional media credibility with YET ANOTHER article that is pinned on faceless voices.

These unnamed sources charge that Palin is looking out for No. 1 in going off message.

Palin’s advisers (who are also unnamed)—

SIDEBAR: Come to think of it, the only sources identified in the article are McCain and Palin officials who came out to address the statements made by these unnamed sources, and a Democratic pollster who is COMPLETELY UNRELATED to anything in the story. Hey, CNN: Why even bother with any names at all? They’re do detail-oriented and cumbersome.

Note to McCain and Obama campaigns: From now on, if a so-called journalist comes to you with information they attribute only to “well-placed sources” or some other such tommyrot, treat him as if he is inquiring about the weekly specials at the local pizzeria. If he isn’t going to take his job seriously, then you shouldn’t, either. END SIDEBAR

—defended her, saying that she was “trying to take more control of her message.“

You know, if I had been mismanaged and muzzled the way Sarah Palin was when she was introduced to the national stage, I would want more control my message, too.

The McCain campaign, as I have pointed out here before, has been one of the most inept in history. Seven days before the election, it’s still searching for a central theme.

McCain staffers have had nearly EIGHT MONTHS to create and hone a comprehensive message to sell their candidate, a guy with 25 years of experience in Washington, in the general election.

They have failed miserably.

So is their failure to sell Palin—a Washington neophyte who’s been on the national scene for only eight weeks—really any surprise?

And one more thing: There’s something that just doesn’t ring true about this feigned shock from McCain advisers. Let me take a stab at explaining why.

They say she’s “going rogue” because she’s splitting with the powers that be.

But when McCain split with the powers that be in the Senate, they called him a “maverick.“

I guess there’s a fine line between “rogue” and “maverick”—and it all depends on whether you’re one of the powers that be.