Palin Interviewer Gibson Let Multiple McCain Lies Go Unchallenged
On the September 7 edition of Fox News Sunday, Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, asserted that Gov. Sarah Palin would not be interviewed until "at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference." ABC News subsequently announced that World News anchor Charlie Gibson had secured the first television interview with Palin following her vice-presidential nomination, which is scheduled to air on September 11 and 12.
Indeed, during a September 3 interview with McCain, Gibson posed no challenge to several of his false, contradictory, or dubious assertions. For example, Gibson did not challenge McCain on his false claim that when Palin became governor of Alaska, she said, "No more [earmarks] for my state"; Gibson offered no rebuttal to McCain's claim that Sen. Barack Obama has never "taken on the special interests in his party on a major issue"; and did not note that McCain previously reportedly had a different view from his current one of the relevance of a governor's experience presiding over his or her state's National Guard.
Media Matters | September 10, 2008 10:11 AM