Candidates give interviews for exposure and to demonstrate their ability to deal with a variety of tough issues. Their answers to tough questions are evidence of both their intellectual and rhetorical abilities (or lack of them) to lead the most powerful nation on Earth.
The Republicans are still too scared to allow Sarah Palin be interviewed. In a candid admission, Todd Harris, John McCain’s former spokesman, said she can’t be allowed to talk just yet because voters will be turned off to her “if she goes out an makes a mistake.”
[youtube 2AV_54517R8]
Today, conservative blogger Jim Treacher says that Palin shouldn’t give an interview until the media earns the right to interview her (via Hot Air).
Not that anybody with a bit of common sense can’t figure it out, but I’ll explain it to everybody else: Because the press hasn’t earned it yet. She was in the national spotlight for all of three days before once-legitimate newspapers started running with demented Internet rumors that she’d faked her pregnancy. Why would she now assume they’re acting in good faith? The only people who are screaming to see her interviewed are the ones who are desperate for ammunition to use against her. Why give it to them?
So Palin has been the victim of a vicious smear campaign? That sounds awfully familiar. In fact, I recall the Cartoon Network Fox News calling Michelle Obama, the Princeton and Harvard-educated lawyer, Barack Obama’s “baby mama:
[youtube TvZEZL2LmA8]
Fox also falsely reported that Obama was “raised a Muslim” and went to a madrassa. That network has gleefully reported every bit of Obama-related dirt it could find, regardless of its truth.
[youtube ouKJixL--ms]
As a result, Obama refused to appear on Fox. He gave plenty of other interviews, though, and the American people got to see that he was capable of answering tough questions. And in any event, Obama relented and appeared on Fox, well before the election.
[youtube 0vYLXZEVsz0]
I guess the conservative base — the Kool-Aid drinkers who believe that the media is a giant liberal conspiracy out to get them — will agree that the media needs to earn the right to interview Sarah Palin.
I’m not so sure about the rest of the country. If Sarah Palin can’t face down Wolf Blitzer, how is she going to handle Vladimir Putin? If Palin becomes president and Russia (Alaska’s neighbor!) says something mean about her, will she break off relations and refuse to restore them until Russia is nicer to her?
Sarah Palin is not refusing to do interviews because the press has said nasty things about her. She’s refusing to do them because she’s unprepared to answer difficult questions and unprepared for the office she seeks. The McCain campaign is keeping Palin under wraps because it is (probably justifiably) scared she will embarrass herself and tank the team’s chances in November.
UPDATE:
As Janice points out, isn’t it Sarah Palin who has to earn votes? And as someone with a history of attempted censorship, isn’t her burden higher to go out of her way to answer questions from a free press?
Back in 1996, when she became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so.
According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason.
After a wave of public support on Emmons’ behalf, Palin relented and let her keep her job.
No comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks