You mean there's an enormous disconnect between what Beltway media elites claim is newsworthy and what news consumers are actually interested in? Shocking, we know.

And it's not like we didn't see this one coming, amidst the orgy of Palin coverage last week:

I'll bet five bucks that when the Pew Research numbers come out this week we'll see a massive disconnect in terms of the amount of time journalists dedicated (i.e. wasted) to the Palin story, and the microscopic percentage of news consumers who listed the Palin book launch as the story they paid the most attention to last week. Instead, once again it will be the economy or health care that top the list because (surprise!) that's what matters to people. Beltway parlor games, and especially pointless ones involving Palin, are of no interest to most news consumers.

Well, the Pew numbers are out and exactly 2 percent of Americans pointed to Palin's book release as the story they followed most closely last week. Yet on cable TV last week, the Palin story devoured 14 percent of the entire news hole.

And oh yeah, a majority of Americans agreed they were hearing “too much” about Palin. So I guess instead of more than 1,700 “Palin” mentions on network and cable news last week, a mere 200-300 would have sufficed.