Palin Draws Favorable Interlocutor For 'Situation Room' Sit Down

Sarah Palin is set to give CNN their first interview, but by the looks of things, I wouldn't expect it to be a particularly rigorous one. As Mark Halperin reports, "Tuesday she'll be interviewed by CNN's Drew Griffin, to air on all three hours of the 'Situation Room.'"

Naturally, Halperin's not clued into any of the relevant details, so here's what you need to know about Griffin: he's an investigative reporter, not the typical type to be doing a candidate interview. But it's not necessarily an odd fit, because Griffin was the reporter behind CNN's prior hagiography on Palin, Sarah Palin Revealed. Griffin's involvement really starts to seem strange when you consider that he was CNN's man on the "troopergate" matter, and he got it wrong. As TPM points out, his conclusion on the story was this: "But please tell me if you think [Trooper Mike Wooten's] tale -- dubbed Troopergate by Gov. Palin's political enemies -- is really the scandal that will bring down the newest star on the political scene."

Of course, in the end, while the scandal didn't "bring down" Palin, such a blithe dismissal wasn't warranted, as it was eventually found that Palin had, in fact, "unlawfully abused her power as governor."

Griffin has also famously struggled with the facts as reported by his own network. In this clip, Griffin contradicts two previous CNN reports on Barack Obama's connections to William Ayers. In doing so, Griffin upholds the crackpotty "reporting" of Stanley Kurtz, and intimates that the Annenberg Challenge Fund -- a committee on which both Obama and Ayers served -- was some sort of nefarious organization. From the way they are described in Griffin's report, the actual activities of the Annenberg Fund are no different from any of the generic grant review activities I was involved in as a contractor to the Federal government. Naturally, I, too, could make those activities sound evil by affecting a pointed, paranoiac inflection in my voice:

And, in this clip, while Griffin correctly notes that the only "fraud" that was committed when ACORN registration drive participants turned in bogus registrations was fraud against ACORN itself, Griffin goes on to allege numerous connections between Obama and ACORN. These include charges that Obama was a community organizer for ACORN and that he trained ACORN volunteers. Neither is true. He also makes it sound as if Obama personally defended ACORN in court, when actually, Obama was one of a team of lawyers who, working in tandem with the U.S. Department of Justice, sued on behalf of numerous groups to get the Motor Voter Bill enforced.

Would it be fair to say that Palin is making out pretty well, then? You betcha!

Comments

[CarmanK]

With all the free favorable media coverage over the next two weeks of Palin and now McCain on Meet the Press this Sunday, I sure hope that 1/2 hour Obama has purchased on major networks on the 29th is a lalapalooza.

[Diplomacy]

Oh Campbell, please!

The issue is Barack Obama PAID for his own suits! Stop the nonsense screaming sexism! So tired of this BS! They're losing so now it's sexism.

Your program is ALL Bull & ALL Bias. Can't wait until you are off the air!

[libdemannie]

I don't know Drew Griffin from the other "rest of the cast" of CNN. There is a reason and he reminds us with a not memorable interview. He and the Gov are on their way to the dustbin of history.

[truthpls]

Drew Griffin in his constant beating of the manufactured voter registration fraud seems to me he is biased to the Right-wing so It doesn't surprise me that Palin choose to have an interview with him
(not John Roberts, Wolf Blitzer, Larry King, Anderson Cooper, Campbell Brown etc)
And the non-interview he did with Palin was laughable Ha, Ha, Ha She said 'Joe Biden got a pass', MY A**S!! PALIN YOU"VE GOTTEN A PASS!!

[jah2008]

Please contact CNN and tell them what you think:

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/cnntv/

[CeeCee]

Way to go CNN -- NOT the best political team on television. He gets it wrong twice, and you're still sending him out on stories????

[leftoflennon]

I've realized he's an A-hole for sometime now infact

[HulaGuyMN]

The election/campaign issues aside, the Drew Griffin "interview" was representative of the caliber of reporting found in broadcast journalism, especially the cable news networks. While there are few skilled journalists still on the airwaves (e.g., Bob Schieffer, Bob Woodward, and several NewsHour staff), much of what we see on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC fails to meet standards of high-quality journalism.

In an effort to beat their "competitors" (journalism as a commodity), these networks hire newsreaders who masquerade as actual journalists; reporters incapable of delivering unbiased, well researched, and intellectually penetrating reportage. The bar has been set so low, that some regard the work of Wolf Blitzer, Tom Brokaw, or Brit Hume as high-grade when they are merely competent.

Does anybody else wonder why CNN's Candy Crowley is considered a "policy analyst"? Or how Brian Kilmeade (Fox), and how he's allowed to share his opinions about Barack Obama's character? Wasn't he trained as a sports writer? And as much as I think that TJ Holmes (CNN) or Rudy Bakhthiar (Fox) are gorgeous to look at, does anyone else feel they're both out of their league?

Maybe they should all think about sticking to the weather.

[studioh!]

Drew Griffin was a joke on local LA news, and he still is a joke. The 2 of them deserve to do countless interviews with each other, maybe standing next to the checkout line at the supermarket, where this brand of journalism catches the most intelligentsia.

[miocid31]

doesn't fail to amaze me that someone running for the second highest office in the nation gets to choose her report....sounds familiar?

[ybfmiami]

Too bad Brzezenski didn't pass on his intelligence to his daughter Mika who spends her mornings on MSNBC defending the indefensible joke known as Sarah Palin. Mika has become the Colmes to Joe Scarborough's Hannity, The sputtering clown next to the blustering right wing buffoon.

[FaceYourFears]

After watching this morning it became clear, stupidity is the only requirement to host MJ.

[Kerra52]

She can't stand up to Joe EVER. she makes her point on something or gives her opinion then Joe chimes in. Then she is like "well...I suppose you're right...I guess...I was just saying..." Completely gives up. THEN this morning she was defending Sara's $150K wardrobe expense and SEEMED pretty firm about it. Then the emails started pouring in attacking her. WOMEN attacking her for Sara presenting herself as the self proclaimed "regular hockey mom" and reformer who sold the governor's jet on ebay, fired the chef, decreased her security, took a pay cut as mayor and so on. Well she has no right to splurge like she is Queen of Jordon while acting like she understand the every woman-mom. I agreed with everything the woman said. then of course Mika was shocked with the viewer's comments and CAVED and went totally in that direction. Even if Is till disagreed with Mika I would have had more respect if she stuck with her guns and insisted it was still necessary for women in national politics to look a certain way because they are always critiqued for that sort of stuff. But no, as usual. backed down.

It is so annoying listening to her. She got a load of emails written to her last week on air about this fact. I want to hear a strong woman up against that bully Joe. THAT would be the perfect balance.

[drec1500Madrid]

If you want to see a fascinating interview check out this one on the BBC show HardTalk.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/7669452.stm

Zbigniew Brzezinski is just so on top of things.

And then watch Sarah Palin on CNN

Then tell me what you think.

[Ides]

Drew Griffin is a complete idiot if you've ever heard him report. He sold the story of the woman with the fake signatures getting taken out of the race against Obama as an example of Obama's "dirty, Chicago-style politics" and then used that as a jump-off point to go into "Obama may not be the kind of politician people expect."

Seriously. This wasn't even Fox News. And the true irony is that he was sharing footage with another separate Obama story but the interview footage he used cut out all of the straightforward explanations in order to make it seem like people didn't know what they were talking about. A couple of months later the interviewee, in the SAME clothes, office, and haircut with the same thing on his computer screen is giving this straightforward, non-controversial explanation.

Ultimately, Drew Griffin's a partisan hack, plain and simple.

[robertsandimas]

Hope you all inundated CNN with comments about this "interview." I wrote WHILE the shameful event was happening. He just let her ramble, yawn, on and on and on. Disgusting.

[Kerra52]

CNN TV feedback:

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/confirmation/generic.html

[kabukiguy]

I was astonished at the insipidity of Griffin's so-called "interview." It was more of a set-up, as if he'd said to her: "I'm so happy to have been granted this interview. Don't be nervous. Here's what we'll do. I'll ask you a question, you'll reply, I won't challenge you, and then I'll ask another question. Isn't that easy?" It was worse than Sean Hannity's interview. At least we knew where Hannity was coming from and that he represented FOX News. But CNN? Not only that, but the CNN anchors who showed clips didn't even offer their own serious critiques of the interview. I know they're critical of her, so what on earth happened? Campbell Brown, for one, was simply missing in action. Campbell, how could you?