Posted By:
Al C.risafulliJeff, I think the media have piled on with Palin.
I also think it's justified.
The Republican party has shielded Palin from questions from Day 1. She has done three interviews. Each one has been a disaster. She has not given a single press conference. She has not answered a single question from any journalist other than the three softball journalists that were hand-picked by the McCain campaign - and when she couldn't answer the questions from Katie Couric and Charles Gibson, they accused both journalists of practicing "gotcha journalism." For asking such inciting questions as "What's your opinion on the Bush Doctrine?" or "What is involved with this bailout?"
You're a member of the media. Tell me, in all honesty - let's say that Obama chose as his running mate a democratic Senator from Hawaii (I removed his name to make this more understandable).
So the Democrats choose their candidate, then immediately tuck him away so that he can begin preparing to campaign in the mainland US. They're giving him crash courses in the Obama platform, while the media is desperately Googling away, trying to find out whatever they can about him so that they can tell the American people about the candidate. Let's say they find out a few things about his personal life, but not much else.
So they start sniffing around, and find he's being investigated for possible ethics violations. And they find he's had some prior religious and political affiliations that might be questionable.
And they want to ask about these things, but the Democrats are not granting access to the media. So they fester.
Then, the Democrats finally give him an interview. For argument's sake, let's say it's an interview with Dan Rather. And he gives a few answers that are tough to understand, like he's talking around in circles. And then he gives another interview, with a left-wing journalist like Keith Olbermann. And Keith serves up a bunch of meatball questions that are easy to answer.
Then he gives another interview with another softball journalist - say it's with Katie Couric. And his answers are just gibberish. And then that's it. Every other public appearance is a carefully crafted, scripted photo opp with virtually no opportunity for ad-libbing, no questions & answer, nothing.
As a member of the media, Jeff, are you going to just let that go? You're going to just sit back and let the Democrats spoon-feed you a candidate, and never give you a chance to vet him?
No. No, you're not. Not if you're a responsible journalist that takes seriously his job of serving the public trust. Or at least his job of selling newspapers.
-Al