Opinion: While Mom meets foreign leaders, Sarah Palin’s family sees the NYC sights

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(UPDATE: Added below.)

While Mom’s at work meeting world leaders at the United Nations, as The Ticket reported earlier, and running for vice president and causing traffic jams with curious crowds jamming streets just to catch a glimpse of the world’s most famous hockey mom, the Palin brood, minus the Army son in Iraq, did what most any other tourist family would do in the Big Apple — they saw the sights.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and spent nearly 90 minutes with ex-President Henry Kissinger — oh, no, wait, he only said he wanted to be president.

Everywhere she went, the GOP’s vice presidential candidate drew crowds with people pulling out cellphone and video cameras to capture the celebrity moment.

So, while all that commotion was going on midtown, the 44-year-old governor’s husband, Todd, the fisherman/union oil field worker, took the kids all over Manhattan on Tuesday.

They saw the Statue of Liberty and got a family group photo taken there to prove it someday to 5-month-old Trig. They made the solemn pilgrimage to Ground Zero.

They went to Central Park, which is nice and all, though pretty puny by Alaska park standards. The children and Dad ate hot dogs and soft pretzels.

And then, the highlight for the youngest girl, Piper, was a visit to FAO Schwarz, where the 7-year-old got to try on some princess dresses.

Wednesday, Mom will be tied up again all day, meeting with four presidents, a prime minister and Bono. So who knows what the family’s tourist itinerary will include? But if they get some tickets over at CBS to the taping of ‘The Late Show with David Letterman,’ they’ll be able to see Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate who will have seen more of their mother during that day than they will have.

(UPDATE: Due to Sen. McCain’s announced suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis, he canceled his wednesday appearance on Letterman. Just to show them, as a last-minute replacement, the show booked instead Keith Olbermann, a vocal, voluble and vociferous critic of the Arizona senator. Matea Gold has more details on the Show Tracker blog.)

— Andrew Malcolm

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