Frink

Spinning Palin gold from Ifill book

02:58PM Oct 01, 2008 in category Politics by George W Frink

Fox News' Greta Van Susteren not withstanding, noise over Vice Presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill's book, "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," simply creates a Palin advantage.

The debate forum is dark. No questions have been asked. Not a word has been utterd in response, and Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin has already been cast by the right-wing blogosphere as a victim of liberal foul play.

Even so, as Judd Legum notes at Huffington Post, the book is not a surprise to anyone who is well-informed. It was reported weeks before both campaigns' agreement on August 6 to the roster of debate moderators.

Van Susteren thus inadvertently contributes to the a case that the McCain campaign can't vet much of anything correctly when she affects high dudgeon to say:

I confirmed for us here on GretaWire: the McCain campaign did NOT know about Gwen Ifill's book (I think I told them when I made my efforts - emails about midnight - to find out!) I am stunned. ... the campaign (actually both) should have been told before the campaign agreed to have her moderate. It simply is not fair - in law, this would create a mistrial.

Given Van Susteren's prompting, however, the right-wing blogosphere could not resist casting Ifill's book as something of an abomination. After all, the resulting narrative is an irresistibly fine fit with the McCain campaign's pre-debate spin that Palin's self-disqualifying statements are somehow the result of a made-up phenomenon called gotcha journalism.

Never mind that some alleging moderator Ifill's bias were reduced this morning to complaining about her facial expressions during the her coverage of the Republican National convention for PBS (to my ear and eye, she looked and sounded tired).

Equally strong on the other side is the Booman Tribune's argument that gender puts spin Ifill in the tank for Palin.

Never mind that no one alleging Ifill's bias appears to have read the book.

Never mind the entire uproar, because it is a blog-driven stunt which arose from what was probably good-faith if incomplete reporting on Van Susteren's part.