The Quiet Conservative September 15, 1008
Et Tu Charlie?
By now there has been much talk about Charlie Gibson’s interview of Governor Sarah Palin on ABC
News. Pundits have been back and forth on whether she was good or bad in the interview, but the
overall consensus was that she wasn't hurt or helped.
But what was hurt was the credibility of ABC News. Questions have arisen about how the interview
was photographed and lighted. Questions are out there about what camera lenses were used and at
what angles the interview was filmed. There is talk it was an effort to make Governor Palin seem
small or weak, and Gibson appear tall and in command simply by the technical way the interview
was produced.
Yes or no, the person with the camera and the producer will have to answer to that. Also, there are
questions being raised about the editing of the responses from the governor by ABC to make her
answers incomplete or give the impression she was unsure or wrong. Experts would have to speak to
the technicalities of lighting and focal lengths and the raw footage would be required to tell the full
tale if ABC engaged in the type of propaganda that sank Dan Rather at CBS.
You don’t have to go that far to see the rank bias and agenda of Gibson and the ABC News
division. It doesn't require experts and testimony. You can simply compare how Gibson and ABC
interviewed Republican Governor Sarah Palin verses how they interviewed Democratic Senator
Barak Obama.
On the web site Free Republic a person posting under the screen name “Quesney” did exactly that.
This person went to the transcripts of Charlie Gibson interviewing Barak Obama June 4, 2208 and
compared it to his interviewing Sarah Palin on September 11, 2008. The answers are edited out and
only the questions remain. The transcript questions from “Quesney” are here. Below they are cut
into segments to compare the tone and substance of the questioning by the ABC icon. The
difference is stark and telling on the core bias by the press and Mr. Gibson.
Gibson to Obama:
GIBSON: Senator, I'm curious about your feelings last night. It was an historic moment. Has it sunk
in yet?
GIBSON: What did your grandmother say?
GIBSON: Public moments are not your own. There's a million people pulling you in a million
different directions, but when everybody clears out, the staff is gone, you're in your hotel room at
night and you're alone -- do you say to yourself: "Son of a gun, I've done this?"
Gibson to Palin:
GIBSON: Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and
it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say "I have the experience
and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of
America?"
GIBSON: And you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know
enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do
this?"
GIBSON: Didn't that take some hubris?
Gibson to Obama:
GIBSON: (inaudible) when you announced, did you truly, in your gut, think that a black man could
win the nomination of a major party to be president of the United States?
GIBSON: You don't get much time to enjoy this before people immediately start talking about the
vice presidency.
GIBSON: But there obviously is one name that looms over all. Hillary Clinton has already, to some
extent, expressed her willingness. There are supporters putting out petitions. There is a drumbeat of
pressure. There are those 18 million votes. Is she a special case that you have to deal with before the
others, or is she considered just like everybody else? How long can you let the "Hillary Clinton on
the ticket" question linger?
Gibson to Palin:
GIBSON: But this is not just reforming a government. This is also running a government on the huge
international stage in a very dangerous world. When I asked John McCain about your national
security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that
Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?
GIBSON: I know. I'm just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy.
GIBSON: Did you ever travel outside the country prior to your trip to Kuwait and Germany last year?
GIBSON: Have you ever met a foreign head of state?
Gibson to Obama:
GIBSON: Does there have to be a yes or no on the issue of Hillary Clinton before you get to the
others, or can this issue linger on, because it pervades everything? You want to move on to the
general election. You want to pivot to a campaign against John McCain. Can you do that while this
question hovers over you?
GIBSON: So, you won't do -- you won't deal with her first, get that out of the way, and then either
move on or not?
GIBSON: As long as that question lingers, can you get about the business of unifying the party, or
does that have to be taken care of first?
GIBSON: Did she squeeze you in any way by making known her interest in the job?
GIBSON: Should you choose her, how do you handle Bill Clinton?
GIBSON: On what three issues will this campaign turn to you?
Gibson to Palin:
GIBSON: And all governors deal with trade delegations.
GIBSON: Who act at the behest of their governments.
GIBSON: I'm talking about somebody who's a head of state, who can negotiate for that country.
Ever met one?
GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a
task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?
(PALIN: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.)
GIBSON: Exact words.
GIBSON: I take your point about Lincoln's words, but you went on and said, "There is a plan and it
is God's plan."
Gibson to Obama:
GIBSON: Do you worry that it could turn on race, age and class?
GIBSON: John McCain has issued an invitation to do a series of town meetings (inaudible). Going to
do it?
GIBSON: Will you go to Iraq?
GIBSON: Public financing: Going to take it or going to say no?
GIBSON: But there's a dynamic on your side, as well. You originally said you would take it.
Gibson to Palin:
GIBSON: Exact words.
GIBSON: I take your point about Lincoln's words, but you went on and said, "There is a plan and it
is God's plan."
GIBSON: But then are you sending your son on a task that is from God?
GIBSON: Let me ask you about some specific national security situations.
GIBSON: Let's start, because we are near Russia, let's start with Russia and Georgia.
GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.
Gibson to Obama:
GIBSON: That was before we saw a...
GIBSON: If you already see that money coming in, it seems to me you're saying...
GIBSON: Is the hardest part of all this behind you or ahead of you?
GIBSON: The picture of you in the paper, this morning, with your wife, watching the Clinton
speech. What did you think of the Clinton speech? She didn't exactly acknowledge your victory.
Gibson to Palin:
GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the
proximity of the state give you?
GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they're doing in Georgia?
GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?
GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.
Gibson to Obama:
GIBSON: And finally your daughters. What did they say to you? Did they take it as a matter of
course that Daddy could be nominated to be president? They never knew what older people know in
terms of discrimination, although they may still feel some. What did they say about that?
GIBSON: I watched closely your countenance last night, your mien, as you stood in that hall. You
didn't smile much. Has the joyfulness of this hit home yet? Do you take joy from it?
GIBSON: Senator, thank you.
Gibson to Palin:
GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into
Georgia?
GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United
States to go to war if Russia were to invade?
GIBSON: Let me turn to Iran. Do you consider a nuclear Iran to be an existential threat to Israel?
GIBSON: So what should we do about a nuclear Iran? John McCain said the only thing worse than a
war with Iran would be a nuclear Iran. John Abizaid said we may have to live with a nuclear Iran.
Who's right?
GIBSON: So what do you do about a nuclear Iran?
GIBSON: But, Governor, we've threatened greater sanctions against Iran for a long time. It hasn't
done any good. It hasn't stemmed their nuclear program.
GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?
GIBSON: So if we wouldn't second guess it and they decided they needed to do it because Iran was
an existential threat, we would cooperative or agree with that.
GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear
facilities, that would be all right.
GIBSON: We talk on the anniversary of 9/11. Why do you think those hijackers attacked? Why did
they want to hurt us?
GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?
GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?
(PALIN: His world view.)
GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.
GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-
defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going
to attack us. Do you agree with that?
GIBSON: Do we have a right to anticipatory self-defense? Do we have a right to make a preemptive
strike again another country if we feel that country might strike us?
GIBSON: Do we have the right to be making cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan,
with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?
GIBSON: But, Governor, I'm asking you: We have the right, in your mind, to go across the border
with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.
GIBSON: And let me finish with this. I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes? That you
think we have the right to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani
government, to go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?
By now you might have noticed the Palin interview had many more questions than Senator Obama
did. That is because Charlie Gibson had to leave time to ask the Senator if he wanted the campaign
contributions from Gibson and the ABC News staff in the form of checks or money orders. They
also had to load the Obama ’08 yard signs in the ABC News van…Well, not really, but it might just
as well have been that way.
The problem isn't the questions Charlie Gibson asked of Palin. A person running for vice president
should be able to handle such and interview and answer such questions. If Governor Palin couldn't
handle a partisan journalist, how could she handle a hostile foreign head of state? The interview
showed she did just fine; including the weird Bush Doctrine question that now everyone from pundits
to former White House officials say they couldn't answer themselves. It turns out there are several
meanings of the Bush Doctrine and it has never meant only one thing.
No, the problem wasn't a tough series of questions to Palin. The problem is Gibson never thought
to pose such questions of Obama, and he isn't the vice president nominee, he is the top of the ticket
Democratic presidential nominee.
Senator Obama has less experience as a U.S. Senator than Sarah Palin does as the Governor of
Alaska. That’s because for the last 21 months Senator Obama has been out running for president
and Sarah Palin has only been on the VP ticket for weeks. While he has been speaking of change on
the stump Governor Palin has been in office running a huge state.
In all of those 21 months no one in the press has bothered to plumb the depths of Senator
Obama's foreign policy experience or positions. Who is he? In fact, no one knows much about the
head of the Democratic ticket at all, from his political launch at Ayer's house to his unexamined time
as a Christ like community organizer. And the press intends to keep it that way.
With this interview Charlie Gibson, not known as a raving nutter like Olberman, has shown the
press corps is rotten all the way through with liberal bias. Go to the ABC News web site and watch
the full interview with Governor Palin online. Look at it with new eyes, ones open to the partisan
manipulations of the press.
Et tu Charlie?