Palin Offers First TV Interview To ABC

NEW YORK — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has agreed to sit down with ABC's Charles Gibson later this week for her first television interview since John McCain chose her as his running mate more than a week ago.

Palin will sit down for multiple interviews with Gibson in Alaska over two days, most likely Thursday and Friday, said McCain adviser Mark Salter.

The interview with Palin was confirmed Friday, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said.

The first-term Alaska governor has given speeches alongside McCain since becoming his surprise pick on Aug. 29. But Democrats have already begun to question why Palin has not been put before reporters to answer questions.

McCain, who appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, said he expected Palin to start doing interviews "in the next few days."

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis complained that the media has focused too much on 44-year-old Palin's personal life. Many of those stories came after McCain's campaign announced that Palin's unwed 17-year-old daughter was pregnant. News reports also have questioned her record as a reformer in Alaska.

"She's not scared to answer questions," Davis said on "Fox News Sunday." "But you know what? We run our campaign, not the news media. And we'll do things on our timetable."

The interview is a coup for Gibson, who also had the only sit-down with McCain during the Republican National Convention. During that interview, he did not question McCain about Palin's family, a decision that he fretted about for hours, Gibson said in a Web log posted last week.

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"Once you know about her daughter's pregnancy, once you know about her husband's political interest in the Alaska Independent Party, once you know about the special nature of their latest child, I think that's enough," Gibson wrote.

The relevant questions about Palin all related to her experience and policy positions as a mayor and governor of Alaska.

ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said he did not believe Gibson's stated stance about family questions was key to securing the interview.

Salter said the offer was made the day after the Republican convention and that there were no ground rules on what could be asked.

He also said Palin had not been sent out to campaign on her own because McCain enjoyed the excitement she was injecting into his campaign.

"They're having a good time. We were riding a lot of momentum coming out of the convention. The crowds were large," said Salter. "The senator himself thought they should continue on for a few days."

Palin won over GOP loyalists with her speech last week at the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., which drew more than 40 million television viewers. But Democrats and even some Republicans have questioned whether she is ready to answer unscripted questions about national and international issues.

"Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?" Davis said. "So until at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference, I think it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment."

Palin's Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Biden, a veteran of the Sunday talk show circuit, challenged Palin to sit for interviews.

"Eventually she's going to have to sit in front of you like I'm doing and have done," Biden said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "Eventually she's going to have to answer questions and not be sequestered. Eventually she's going to have to answer questions about her record."

Gibson, in the Web log posted the day after Palin's speech, said he thought it was a very successful night for her.

"The difficult hurdles are to come, I think: The first interviews she'll face on issues; the first time she's closely questioned on positions she's taken in her state; and then, of course, the debate with Joe Biden," he wrote.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Sara Kugler in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.

Comments

[Housewife]

Gibson will throw his usual softballs. The fix is in.

[lthuedk 1]

Prepare for pre-screened softballs. ABC = Disney = Neo Con Corp subsidiary.

This will very likely be a syrupy-not journalist­ic-display of rank partisanship and will avoid any questions tying Ms theobot to the classic fascist model of Nationalist Socialism that she so clearly is. Recall the selling of Junior? Well, that ole family feelin' that only Disney can give is about to endorse totalitarianism in a far more toxic form than Bush.

http://www.light-to-dark.com/beware_of_false_prophets.html

While Palin's theobotics scream from her every pour, Disney will deftly present Lady Hemlock as a nutritious cocktail like she is actually legitimate and here to help democracy in the clearest Rovian fashion.

Theobots are cowards, like her handlers, and under total Neo Con control. Palin will be protected as the fascist's golden goose. Were she to face real scrutiny, she'd instantly collapse under the mass of her own lies.

The legions of Neo Conned lawyers infesting Alaska to quiet the truth will now have ABC to help them portray a far from innocent religious anarchist as a Sunday school teacher.

Surprise me, ABC. I dare ya.

[TexasDem0]

This is an extension of the Special Olympics presidency. George Bush mostly spoke before carefully selected audiences who only asked carefully worded questions copiously laced with hearty endorsements of his virtue and courage. Contact with average citizens, with real questions, was blocked in order to protect his fragile super inflated ego. Now we have a VP candidate who also has to be protected from hard questions, so the obliging media will once again grovel in timid obeisance.

[Opt1musPr1me]

The media is going to treat Palin with soft gloves on, because they don't want to be called sexist. They thought Obama got a pass from the media? Palin's pass will be VIP status.

[Mattjoe]

Charles Gibson

Question 1:

‘Alaskan Independence Party, a political party in Alaska that has the motto “Alaska First, Alaska Always” and wishes to secede from the United States’

So Sarah, how when will you be returning to the north?

[Viper]

I want to know about the arrest of her son for vandalism that I have read about on Alaskan web sites.

I here its sealed because he was under 18.. OK.. But was he arrested? And was he ordered into the service as the rumor goes...

Now this could be just rumors.... But I want to know... their is the image and then there is the reality!

Spears bad mother... Palin good mother... My how things change at FOX and Focus in the Family in just a couple of months.

Regards

[AlanBJ]

abc.virginia.govginia.gov; abc.comc.com; [e-mail];

Write to ABC and have your friends sign off on the letter

[John05]

couldn't find a more gutless butt kisser than Charlie Gibson, way to go!

[eddiebly]

"McCain campaign manager Rick Davis complained that the media has focused too much on 44-year-old Palin's personal life."


Well Rick, you are the one that said the election is not abotu issues.

[FaceYourFears]

Tim Russert would have asked the right questions.

[Viper]

You mean we get weeks of MSM coverage of Obama's church but not Palin's.

Questions about is he a Muslim for 12 months and the viral emails? Michelle's "I have really only been proud to be an American..­. statement played around the clock, but not Palins husbands membership in AIP or McCain's similar statement in his book!

Its impoartant that Obama knew Ayres 40 years later but not that Palin and her hudsband goto, are active in a separtist movement party?

Note repugs attack and say everthing is unfair and it works... DEMs dont say Media you have covered this items differently for our canidate!

I some how think radical religious beliefs are Important. Talking in Tongues is now mainstream America? Benny Hinn could be our next president?

Regards

[Independent007]

A puff interview from conservative ABC to Palin? And you expect us to believe anything that comes out of her mouth?
The corporations that comprise MSM think they are able to feed us crap and we have to buy it, sorry this cover up reporting, and unfortunately most of low information Americans will think that she is just wonderful for the country.

I won't watch the interview because ABC doesn't give a damn about America.

[barackobama4prez]

abc tried to thwart O's run. abc tried to cover for mccain's anbar awakening blunder. abc tosses favorable polling for the dems.....t­his is not a coincidence that she chose abc.

[donkeybasketball]

They'll give the same passes that they've given to McCain. George Stephanopoulos gave MAJOR grade inflation on McCain's RNC speech report card on nightline. I've been turned off from ABC (ultimately) ever since their joke of a debate in Philly. Someone should leak the WPVI tapes of the crowd booing George and Charlie. Journalism. Pshaw. I wonder what the "terms and conditions" of the interview are.

[sg096]

The MSM will elect McCain and Palin