Sarah Palin struggles through another interview, this time with friends
WASHINGTON • Ever since Sarah Palin sat down with ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson last week, Republicans have complained that the venerable newsman was unforgivably condescending and aloof.
Gibson’s sin? Asking Palin, insistently, whether she supported and could describe “the Bush doctrine.” The Alaska governor simply couldn’t answer.
“In what respect, Charlie?”
Gibson: “What do you interpret it to be?”
Palin: “His world view?”
Umm, okay.
Conservative commentators – notably syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer – rushed to Palin’s defence. Krauthammer pointed out there have been “four distinct meanings” of the Bush doctrine.
They include America’s willingness to unilaterally withdraw from international treaties, the president’s post-9/11 ‘with-us-or-against-us’ ultimatum to nations harbouring terrorists, the use of pre-emptive war to protect the United States from imminent threats, and his second-term ‘freedom’ agenda.
Krauthammer chastised Gibson for practicing “gotcha” journalism and said the anchor “captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension” elitists feel toward Palin.
Or, maybe, Gibson was just asking.
Palin’s defenders haven’t bothered considering the obvious: If there are indeed four Bush doctrines, shouldn’t a potential vice president be able to name at least one of them?
But never mind. It was all Gibson’s fault. Of course White House aspirants should be spared such ruthless journalistic inquisition.
So now that we’re all are familiar with the rules as they pertain to Palin, it’s worth examining how the governor fares when the questions come from less hostile interrogators.
Palin granted her first U.S. cable interview this week to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who was hardly aiming to repeat Gibson’s effrontery.
(Typical question: “Explain when you were governor, and as governor of Alaska, how you took on your own party.”)
And yet, Palin struggled. At times, the Republican candidate bordered on the incoherent, as when Hannity asked if she’d had a “hockey team” meeting with her family after being asked to be John McCain’s running mate.
“It was a time of asking the girls to vote on it, anyway. And they voted unanimously yes. Didn't bother asking my son because, you know, he is going to be off doing his thing anyway so he wouldn't be so impacted by, at least the campaign period here. So I asked the girls what they thought and they are like, absolutely, let’s do this, mom.”
Like, totally awesome.
And does Palin support the U.S. government’s bailout of failing corporations to prevent financial crisis?
“Well, you know, first, Fannie and Freddie, different because quasi-government agencies there where government had to step in because the adverse impacts all across our nation, especially with home owners, is just too impacting.”
Somewhere, Jean Chretien is feeling better about his own English skills.
But maybe Hannity, like Gibson, was playing gotcha.
Surely Palin would do better at her first town hall meeting with McCain, held Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Mich.
One woman asked Palin to “rebut or mitigate” concerns about her lack of foreign policy experience by describing “specific” skills in that area.
Palin seemed taken aback.
“But as for foreign policy, you know, I think I am prepared, and I know that on Jan. 20, if we are so blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice-president, certainly we'll be ready. I'll be ready. I have that confidence. I have that readiness and if you want specifics with specific policy or countries, go ahead. You can ask, you can play ‘stump the candidate’ if you want to. But we are ready to serve.”
The ‘shoot-the-messenger’ reaction among conservatives to tough questions posed to Palin has been similar to the way liberals howled over Barack Obama’s treatment by Gibson and his ABC colleague, George Stephanopoulos, during a Democratic debate last April.
Gibson and Stephanopolous were cast as conservative stooges after asking Obama about his relationships with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former domestic terrorist William Ayers.
Curiously, conservatives like Krauthammer took no issue with ABC’s grilling of Obama. There are simply questions “you’ve got to ask” of a presidential candidate, Krauthammer said then: “The liberal critics’ idea of what a question on the issues would have been, ‘Senator Obama, can you tell us how you are going to undo the diplomatic, economic, and all the other damage that the Bush administration has committed over the last seven years, and while you’re answering, would you like a pillow?’ ”
So why the double standard for Palin?
The Alaska governor’s associates insist she is a quick-on-her-feet debater who thrives in the crucible of political confrontation.
If Palin hopes to prove her supporters right, she’s got to step up her game before the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate. The questions don’t get easier.