Ifill Book Public Weeks Before McCain Agreed To Have Her Moderate VP Debate

The McCain camp is claiming it didn't know about Gwen Ifill's book prior to agreeing to her as moderator for the VP debate:

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.

If that's true, it just shows the McCain campaign's incompetence. The debate moderators were agreed to on August 6. Ifill's book was reported in the Associated Press two weeks earlier:

"We have an awkward history about how to talk about race in the nation and in newsrooms," says Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent for PBS' "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and author of "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," slated for publication early next year.

Of course, when you have Drudge on your side the facts don't matter much.

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