Thursday’s debate – how neutral the moderator?
Claudette, who writes as the Greenwich Diva, has expressed ambivalent feelings towards the appointment of PBS reporter Gwen Ifel as moderator of tomorrow night’s Palin-Biden debate. Claudette seems to fear that Ifel won’t be up to the task of dismembering that sly devil, Governor Palin (Claudette and I are fast friends but we’ve never agreed on politics and this issue is no exception). I don’t share her ambivalence because I think the debate organizers have purposefully selected an Obama partisan in the hope that she’ll do exactly what Claudette dreams of.
Michelle Malkin points out that Ifel has a pro-Obama book due out in January. The book’s a best seller if Obama wins; he loses, and it’s a historical curiosity (I speak from experience – my own book, “The New Millionaire’s Handbook” was written at the height of the dot.Com boom. Despite my urgings that the boom would bust and the people I’d described wouldn’t be as funny without money, publication was delayed until November 2000. Result? 20,000 copies sold instead of the predicted 500,000).
Can Ifel be objective? I don’t know, she’s a good journalist, but I do find her a dubious choice as moderator.
Update
The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, no liberal he, says fuhgeddaboutit. Palin will stand or fall on her performance and nothing any moderator, even Gwen Ifell (two “l”s, my experts advise me) can bring her down. It’s all up to the candidate, Taranto says and, thinking about it, I believe he’s right. Which is a relief because I’ve always respected Ifell’s work. I’m still going to view her suspiciously tomorrow night but Taranto’s right: if Palin can’t stand up to a newscaster,let alone a schnook like Joe Biden, then she shouldn’t be our Vice President.