As Palin Refused To Answer Questions, Ifill Should Have Pushed Back
The minute Sarah Palin tried to take the VP debate hostage by announcing she would not be "answering the questions the way the moderator would like," the moderator needed to set her straight. But Gwen Ifill seemed reluctant to rein in Palin, instead allowing her to evade question after question by offering up one rehearsed platitude after another. Joe Biden was quick to challenge Palin on the issues, but he was not in a position to say "Hey, you never answered the question!" That would be the moderator's job, to push back and push for some real answers, not slick evasions wrapped in the "aw shucks, you betcha" patois that Palin wears as some sort of badge of authenticity.
But for some reason, Ifill failed to push back. Perhaps it was the format of the debate itself, in which Ifill posed a question to each candidate and then allowed the other a couple of minutes to respond. The pace was energetic and rapid, Ifill had a lot of ground to cover and, with one eye on the clock, she may have felt compelled to move on to the next question. She did manage to cut Palin off at one point with a curt "time's up," but she never really confronted her with the fact that Palin was failing to actually answer so many questions.
Or perhaps it was a case of Ifill being somewhat cowed by pre-debate allegations from the right that she is biased towards the Obama-Biden ticket simply because she is writing a book about black politicians. There's no way to know what was in her mind, of course, no way to know whether a conscious or even subconscious fear of being accused of bias prompted her to pull her punches. Personally, I find it hard to believe Ifill would be intimidated by pre-debate blather from the blogosphere, or Fox News, for that matter. She has a long and distinguished record as a tough journalist who is not afraid to ask tough questions. But for whatever reason, the debate got away from her and Palin got away with passing off folksy platitudes as substitutes for substance.
Too bad. Palin was obviously well-rehearsed and met the 'better-than-expected" test, which isn't saying much since expectations were fairly low. But the reason Katie Couric was able to reveal Palin's serious deficiencies as a candidate was because she repeatedly challenged Palin's indecipherable answers to her questions, pushing for - yes, some straight talk.
Palin's folksy approach clearly works with a lot of people. But when it comes across as rehearsed, it sounds like a gimmick. Last night, at one point, she uttered, "Say it ain't so, Joe," a line that landed with a thud because it seemed to come from out of nowhere, completely out of context. She had clearly rehearsed the line, perhaps hoping it would become the catchphrase of the evening. But instead of sounding authentic, it smacked of artifice.
Biden, on the other hand, was at his most authentic and affecting when he passionately spoke of his years as a single father of two sons, one of whom is now in Iraq. When his voice broke, briefly, during the telling, there was nothing rehearsed or artificial about it.
Straight talk will come out, it seems, even if the moderator fails to insist on it.
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Ifill did fine. Voters should be able to see avoidances of questions for what they are without having to have the media hold their hand and 'splain it to them.
While I agree that Gwen Ifill could have and should have pressed for answers to the questions she asked, in the end, it wouldn't have made much difference. Palin would have dodged the follow-ups as well.
http://mitch4president.wordpress.com/
Ifill was clearly intimidated by the pre-debate spin from the McCain camp about her book. PBS should have replaced her if she was unable to do her job, which she clearly was. It was awful, Ifill.
Ifill was fine. Learn how to see through BS for yourself, instead of having the media point it out to you.
Ifill sadly was cowed and clearly did not have the stomach to deal with more tap dancing on top of her head. As much as I hate saying it, she should have backed out.
Ifill was fine. Palin would have done the same regardless who the moderator.
Stop blaming the moderator for Palin's dishonesty.
I thought both Lehrer and Ifill were not up to the tast of moderating the debates. Lehrer let McCain go on and on and on not letting Obama respond in a couple of instances and Ifill clearly let Palin do whatever she wanted in terms of responding to the questions. Palin had cheat notes on every topic that she kept reviewing during the debate which was embarrassing but worse, she rambled on about unrelated topics to specific questions and Ifill did not call on her to adhere to responding to the question. We will see how Brokaw does but I wish Tim Russert was around. He would not let anyone get away with anything.
I think that, unlike most anchors, reporters and pundits who we see on tv, Lehrer and Ifill were willing to trust the majority of the American voters to draw the correct conclusions. Lehrer did press McCain, and McCain kept interrupting both Lehrer and Obama. The camera often showed close-ups of McCain's facial expressions and his frequent vocalized and unvocalized laughter. It showed his refusal to treat Obama with respect. Ifill did bring Palin back to some issues, but Palin kept skittering away from certain issues like the insect or spider she is. Couric's interviews of Palin also were low-key because she evidently believed that Palin's performance spoke for itself. Palin is supposedly strongly anti-crime, but she did not name the Brady rule, any of the decisions based on the Miranda ruling or any other criminal decisions by the Supreme Court when asked if she disagreed with any other supreme court decisions. I often have trouble remembering the names of the parties in appeals decisions, although I went to law school some years ago and never practiced, but one still remembers the principles involved. Palin remembers neither the principles nor the principals, as she is too self-involved to do even the most cursory research, a trait McCain obviously shares with her on many issues.
I blame the format more than Ifill as it clearly favored Palin. Of course, The GOP playing the race card on Ifill the day before was intended to undermine the moderator's credibility and confidence. But let's face it, few consider Katie Couric to be a truly hard-hitting journalist, and yet she was able to elicit totally inane responses from Palin while asking totally innocous questions, none of which required any advance coaching to answer intelligently, or at least coherently. "What publications do you read?" And Sarah Palin considers this a "Gotcha" question?
And now playing to the public's general disdain for the media, Palin announces she will no longer "filter" her message through the media (except for Fox) so we can get to see "the real Sarah Palin" and what really matter: meaning let her rait on and on, in her folksy, "the heck with" honesty or reality style, against how "disqualified" Barack Obama is.
The format didn't favor Palin any more than it favored Biden. Palin was responsible for Palin's dishonesty, and no one else.
It isn't always up to the media to explain the obvious to the viewer.
I agree --- Palin got a free pass and Ifill was too passive. True, Palin made a jerk of herself by spewing canned responses, but it would have been nice if Ifill had pushed for specifics rather than allowing Palin a litany of generalities.
I regret that Gwen Ifill is, generally, not as hungry and incisive as other journalists; you don't have to go for the jugular in order to extract important information; Katie Couric uncovered the Palin-abyss with just the flick of a velvet glove.
I preferred Palin making a jerk of herself, rather than Ifill trying to help her appear competent and qualified.
I've definitley turned against the McCain ticket.
When I saw a rerun of the debate.... At the very beginning when the candidates walk out onto the stage (platform?) Sarah shakes hands with Joe Biden and says "can I call you Joe? with a warm smile. Of course "Joe" Biden says yes. HE WAS BEING SET UP SO this jerk could use that catch frase "Not again Joe" later in the debate. It's infuriating. She came off as being warm and extending a hand of freindship only to use his response later for a gimick. How republican is that? She managed to set the bar lower than even the publics exptectations. As Gollum would say "She's tricksey!"
I hope you don't think Biden was fooled by that gambit.
On the other hand, Ifill might have been just giving Palin enough rope to hang herself. One of the biggest critiques of Palin's performance was precisely that she chose not to answer so many questions and stuck (or "pivoted", as she likes to say) to her own talking points. This behavior, allowed to go unrestrained, especially in contrast to Biden's responding on point, turned off a lot of voters who really did want the debate to inform them.
Or maybe Ifill is as lightweight on the left as Palin is on the right. They both reek of tokenism, I'm sorry to say.
I think the repugs deliberately softened questions for Palin by bringing up Ifill's upcoming book.
It was a shame the candidates were not asked to elucidate their positions on abortion. That would have solidified any beliefs in the minds of those on the far right that Ifill was out to get Palin, but would have certainly been helpful to anyone undecided about her. In other words, inciteful and insightful.
They also should have been asked about the role that religion is allowed to play in public institutions, such as the courthouse, and in public schools. WHICH version of the 10 commandments is going to be placed in the courthouse? I know of at least 3: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant.
The right wing has been trying to indoctrinate the majority of Christians and all other religious groups in the country by certain practices in public schools, and I can tell you that it caused me some distress when i attended high school in Ogden, Utah. I was equipped to deal with theological issues as I was quite a reader and very introspective. I also found the prayers before wrestling matches offensive, which the entire student body was forced to attend and to watch. There is a great trivialization of religion as well as indoctrination going on in some public schools.
In light of the fact that McCain and Palin were allowed to play the race card against Ifill (questioning her fairness) with little or no push back from Gwen Ifill's media peers, is anyone really surprised that this black woman decided to follow the common script and let america's sweetheart wink and giggle and have her way.
Let's see if anyone challenges Sarah's refusal to answer questions, hold press conferences, conduct interviews, address the issues, explain herself, or do anything we would normally expect from our vice-presidential in the next 30 days.
One would think McCain would have chosen a steel magnolia, who could flutter and flirt and giggle with the best of them, but could stand up very well to the press. Of course, McCain does not like to marry or partner with strong women in work relationships. He admires and respects women like Carly Fiorina, but how much time does he actually spend with her?
SO many of us liberals don't get it! We want them push back -- fight -- we want a knife fight! Don't let 'em get away with it! But that's NOT what the moderare undecideds want. They LOVE it when Obama says "John's right" during the debate! They like it when you're willing to concede a point so you can make a large one. They don't like getting dragged down into bickering! And with all the controversy surrounding Ifill, she was right not to push back. It would have turned off that 4% everyone's fighting for.
As much as I detest almost everything about Sarah Palin, I don't think it was Gwen Ifill's job to serve as America's brain. I know it wouldn't have changed Palin's performance--her comment about not answering the moderator's questions was as canned as the rest of her talking points. The people who cared about the answers knew she wasn't answering the questions. The Republicans who were initially excited by this self-righteous, power-crazed know-nothing, and then embarrassed by her performance in the Couric interview, merely needed to see her perform her schtick well enough once so that they could rationalize away her dismal media appearances. As long as they weren't complete gibberish, her answers didn't matter. The idiots who watched to see if the candidates "relate" to them would have seen the intrusion as the "media elites" tromping on the hockey mom, rather than as a cue that they ought to care about the answers, and ought to want someone smarter and more knowledgeable than themselves to run the country. And the people who were looking for any reason to support McCain and Palin because they weren't quite ready to support someone like Barack Obama for President would probably have thought Gwen was rude for asking the Governor to answer the questions. Seems to me, the problem really isn't Gwen.
"I don't think it was Gwen Ifill's job to serve as America's brain." Great line!
With a little help from Biden, who pointed out several times that Palin hadn't answered the question asked, even the dimmest viewer of the debate was aware of what Palin was doing and why. As today's polls show, Palin's strategy didn't work. This wasn't as interview, during which the interviewer might be expected to press for an answer; this was a "debate" in which the moderator's job was to ask questions and ensure equal time to the two principals to answer. It was not her job to instruct them to actually answer the questions she asked.
Isn't it the job of journalists not to be bullied by politicians?
Shame on Ifill for not doing her job. Inexcusable.
IA she should have made her answer the ?'s
How was she going to MAKE Palin answer the questions!?
Got any brilliant ideas on that?
I have respected Gwen for some time, however, last nights debate was not her best moment. Perhaps she was off her stride because of the predictable comments being made by McCain about her book coming out, or maybe she was not feeling well after her recent ankle injury (broken in a fall?). But I am very disappointed. I hope someone will forward some of these concerns to her, or possibly she might actually see some of these -- not sure if she ever goes to Huffington website.
I would have really appreciated some reining in of Palin's diatribes off point and even her open statement of refusal to answer questions posed by the moderator. Are you kidding? How could that just be ignored by the moderator? She should have quipped something appropriate after that blockbuster revelation by Palin. Was Gwen so afraid of the Republicans and McCain that she just sat there like a bump? Sorry, but the moderator gets a D, Palin gets a D- and Biden gets a B+ -- for being abused like that and taking it like the Statesman and Gentleman that he is. Gwen, you should be ashamed for NOT DOING YOUR JOB! Sure hope Bob Scheifer & Tom Brokow do better in the next debates.
They really need to change the rules of the debate. By definition- a debate is answering questions. Otherwise what is the point of having one side produce a "sham"? I watched the debate closely. About ten minutes into it I found myself asking the same question I asked during the Couric interview. "What the heck did she just say"? She was everything I expected.... There's a great quote- "You can dress a mule up in fancy harness and hook it up to a fancy buggy but it's still just a mule".
Given how the debate turned out, I think it was perfect. Biden was brilliant and sincere. Palin was totally artificial.