Palin Agrees To Be Interviewed By Charles Gibson

The record long wait for Sarah Palin to face the media might be coming to an end later this week. AP reports that Palin has agreed to an interview with ABC’s Charles Gibson later in the week.

I’m not at all surprised by the choice. Going on Fox News might be received by ridicule–and there is no longer any guarantee they will toe the party line any more. They certainly couldn’t risk having Palin on Fox News Sunday after Chris Wallace debunked the campaign’s claims about Palin’s record on pork-barrel spending and the “bridge to nowhere.” If you want someone from one of the networks who is likely to avoid rocking the boat and defer to authority, Gibson might be the best choice. This is fine, as long as Palin agrees to face tougher journalists in the following days.

Stretching this out, along with the announcement the choice of Palin the day after the Democratic convention concluded, is a good move for maximizing coverage for the ticket. Talk will probably continue to concentrate on the GOP ticket for several more days, helping McCain in the polls. The Republicans are good at playing politics. If they could govern half as effectively as they play politics the country would be in much better shape.

Update: People commenting are concerned that  Gibson will conduct a softball, or even whiffle ball, interview. As I responded, there is a chance that the interview might not entirely be softball or whiffle ball. Gibson has brought up a lot of the nonsense attacks with Obama in the past.

My fear is that Gibson doesn’t have what it takes to separate out the criticism which matters from that which doesn’t. I fear he will ask questions on some of the irrelevant criticism such as Bristol’s pregnancy or criticism for working instead of taking care of her kids. These are more personal concerns which the media is obsessed with but which don’t address the real concerns about Palin being vice president.

We need interviews which look at her lack of experience in national and international issues and which examine her views which are far to the right even by Republican standards. While I was never a big fan of Tim Russert’s gotcha questioning, it would be appropriate in her case as there are so many contradictions in her statements and she has already been caught in so many lies.

15 Comments

  1. 1
    MsJoanne says:

    Can you say softball “interview?”  Maybe he’ll just sit there and let her do talking points.

    I’m surprised they didn’t have her on Fox first. 

    What a f*cking joke.  How about a room full of journalists?  Hell, how about just her and Helen Thomas?

    Yeah, right.  Charlie Gibson.

    Woo, frigging, hoo.

  2. 2
    TLZ says:

    I don’t understand the anxiety over the media’s frenzy to interview Palin other than for their own career or agenda.  There is plenty of information online for people to become informed about here.  It is not like she has tons of skeletons in her closet or crazy associations like Obama – Wright, Rezco, Ayers, and the like.  If she did, it would be all over the place.  Now, Obama says he will keep Bush’s tax cuts in place.  I thought Obama said Bush’s policies were horrible?  He is full of it.  I am sick of this man.

  3. 3
    republican disasters says:

    Charlie won’t softball her, he’s going to WIFFLE ball her.

  4. 4
    Martin Feldman says:

    Here is all the Dems need to say about Sarah Palin:

    Q: What is the difference between Sarah Palin and Mike Huckaby?

    A: Lipstick

  5. 5
    Ron Chusid says:

    Martin,

    If he was going to appease the far right, I would have preferred she went with Huckabee. While they are both far further to the right on social issues than I would want, at least Huckabee has some knowledge of opposing concerns, as well as having more experience. There is hope that if in office Huckabee might show some restraint in basing his policy on his religious views for Constitutional reasons. I’m not sure Palin would understand these problems.

    This would be one interesting topic for an interview but I doubt Gibson (or most television reporters) would get into this issue sufficiently to really address the issues.

  6. 6
    Ron Chusid says:

    TLZ,

    The issue of interviewing Palin is significant because she has virtually no experience on national or international issues. The information available on her shows a shocking lack of knowledge of these issues, making people interested in a current interview.

    An interview is also of value as she has already been caught in multiple lies, making it of interest to see how she would respond if questioned about this.

    You got it backwards with regards to associations. Obama has clearly repudiated the controversial views of Rev. Wright. The charges regarding Rezko have been found to be untrue. For example, Obama paid fair market value for the house. While Rezko likely was hoping to get favors from Obama, the evidence shows that Obama never did so, making their association irrelevant. Obama served on a bipartisan committee with Ayers making their association of no political signficance.

    In contrast, Palin has an association with the Alaska Independence Party which opposes the United States. Her pastors have been quoted as saying many bigoted things which are comparable in their extremism to the views expressed by Wright. An interview would be of value in determining if Palin will dissociate herself from the views of the AIP and her pastors as Obama has repudiated the extremist views of both Rev. Wright and Ayers.

    You also got it wrong on tax policy. Obama has supported tax cuts all along. McCain has been lying in saying he supported a tax increase. Obama supports tax cuts for the middle class–not tax cuts for the wealthy as under Bush’s plan. (Bush added tax cuts for the middle class to his tax plan only when pushed by the Democrats in Congress).

    The difference on taxes is that the bulk of the tax cuts on McCain’s tax plan goes to the top one tenth of one percent while Obama’s tax cuts go to those making under $250,000 per year.

  7. 7
    Ron Chusid says:

    There is a chance that the interview might not entirely be softball or whiffle ball. He has brought up a lot of the nonsense attacks with Obama in the past.

    My fear is that Gibson doesn’t have what it takes to separate out the criticism which matters from that which doesn’t. I fear he will ask questions on some of the irrelevant criticism such as Bristol’s pregnancy or criticism for working instead of taking care of her kids. These are more personal concerns which the media is obsessed with but which don’t address the real concerns about Palin being vice president.

    We need interviews which look at her lack of experience in national and international issues and which examine her views which are far to the right even by Republican standards. While I was never a big fan of Tim Russert’s gotcha questioning, it would be appropriate in her case as there are so many contradictions in her statements and she has already been caught in so many lies.

  8. 8
    MsJoanne says:

    Watch these two videos about her Assemblies of God and tell me that these views are anywhere near mainstream.  They make Wright look like the pope!

    And then there is this little piece on Ms. Palin from an investigative journalist from ABC.

  9. 9
    MsJoanne says:

    And remember, her wacky church is driving her policy decisions.  That, to me, is huge.

  10. 10
    Ron Chusid says:

    MsJoanne,

    I have also included some of the quotes from Palin’s pastors in previous posts (but far from all the material which has been posted on line).

    People can argue about which or not these are worse than Wright’s views. The key thing is that people may or may not share all the views expressed in their church. Obama has repudiated the radical views expressed by Wright. We need a good interview to determine how Palin feels about the views expressed in her church.

    Obama has also made clear his views on separation of church and state. We need answers from Palin as to how her religious views will influence her policy decisions, especially as she already shows an excessive degree of influence from religious groups on her policy views.

    I’ve already posted the ABC report on Troopergate and Palin’s abuse of power. The sad thing is that many “conservatives” are defending Palin on this. There was a day when true conservatives would side with liberals in opposing such abuses of power. Today such abuses of power are standard operating procedure for the GOP.

  11. 11
    MsJoanne says:

    Could you imagine if it was a Dem doing all of this?  I mean, really…look what happened to Clinton over a consensual blow job.

    As for Bush, et al…NOTHING.

  12. 12
    MsJoanne says:

    BTW, I didn’t mean to step on any of your fine work by posting links.  I love the work you do, Ron!

  13. 13
    Ron Chusid says:

    MsJoanne,

    I have thought of that point all along. The right wing would be going wild over so many of the things which Palin has done but instead defend her because she is one of them. (In contrast, I have plenty of posts criticizing Democrats as I hold members of both parties to the same standard).

    Feel free to continue to post links. It never hurts to repeat them, especially as many of the posts here are read by Google searches or links to a single post and people reading the post might not have seen my earlier links.

  14. 14
    Alaska's Worried says:

    I hope Gibson asks her about some of her dirty personal politics.  Like how she has attempted to persecute her sister’s ex-husband.  And how she buried her son Track’s involvement in a large-scale vandalism prank that cost his school district thousands of dollars in repair bills and lost school days.  And how she’s buried the same son’s case of statutory rape (he screwed a 14 year-old) by sending him into the army.  And how she destroyed her husband’s business by screwing his partner.  And how her 17 year-old daughter (16 when she got pregnant) is not really gonna get married.  And so on…

    She’s a dirty little sneak with a vindictive streak who would have fit in perfectly with Nixon’s gang.  I wonder if Gibson will get to any of THAT?

  15. 15
    Ron Chusid says:

    Gibson has already indicated he will stay away from the person issues. Unless there is hard evidence of the above, I agree.

    The media has spent far too much time on Bristol’s pregnancy. Everyone knows about it and there’s nothing more to say. There is certainly no benefit in making attacks as above without evidence.

    I’m hoping he does ask some tough questions about her views and what she has actually done in office as opposed to asking about these personal matters. Of course some of the lies she has been caught in are worth discussing. I’d also like to see some tough questions on an assortment of national and international issues to see if she can discuss such matters intelligibly. I’m not terribly optimistic we will see many tough questions.

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