Women Wired In

Posted by digitalsista on October 2nd, 2008 in Diversity, Economics, Media Justice, Netroots, Social Media, eGovernment, elections 2008, politics, race

Ironic how the Vice Presidential debate has moved to have Republican VP Nominee Sarah Palin compete against the Journalist Gwen Ifill instead of the Democratic VP Nominee Joe Biden. It seems Ifill is easier to take down than Biden since he has experience debating women for both the Presidential and VP slots. It looks like some people would prefer a “cat fight” instead of a Vice Presidential Debate.

The debate suspension idea was started by John McCain who wanted to suspend the first Presidential debate. A deflection that many thought was about his weakness on the economic issues. On the night of the debate the reporters asked for feedback from both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Palin was suspiciously missing.

It seems McCain was not avoiding the debate for himself but avoiding it so that Palin did not have to answer Foreign Policy questions as a wrap up on the issues that were debated that night. Hence, Palin would have been unprepared to answer questions that she would not have been previously trained on. Like her Katie Couric interveiws.

Below is a clip with Couric and Sarah Palin spliced with her asking the same questions to Joe Biden.

Several conservative journalists and radio show hosts like Sean Hannity has made this a part of the issue for the debates tonight. Including getting Sarah Palin to respond to what Ifill had to say about the book.

Just so we are on the same page Hannity only let Palin listen to part of what Ifill had to say quoted in “McCain criticizes Ifill“:

HANNITY: Let me ask you one last question. There’s been this issue that the moderator of tomorrow night’s debate, Gwen Ifill, is apparently writing a book to come out the time the next president takes office, and apparently, I actually have the tape, and I’ll play it for you. This is Gwen Ifill talking about the book and it seems very favorable to Barack Obama, I want to ask you out of this if you’re concerned about it.

IFILL: My name is Gwen Ifill. I am the moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and a senior correspondent for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. The title of the book is “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama”. It’s taking the story of Barack Obama and extending it to cover a whole new generation of black politicians who are doing similar things in different ways.

Here is the whole piece. The story is about blacks in politics in an era that has surpassed civil rights marches and made it possible to have the first African American Presidential Nominee in any party. Let us not forget that this has not happened before and a journalist should be able to tell this story.

Are there some questions about how Ifill will profit from this book? Most are bringing that up as the reason for the conflict of interest. Yes, Ifill will profit from this book, that is why she is writing it. What no one is talking about is that the book will profit whether Obama wins or not. It is a guaranteed sale. Many will want to know what it would have meant for blacks politicians to have the First Black President if Obama looses. If he wins it gives people a glimpse as to what kind of President he might become.

The biggest conflict would have been if she hadn’t told anyone about it. It had been reported over a month ago. Now it looks like it is another tactic to assistant Sarah Palin since this was a media storm a few days before the debate.

McCain has also flipped flopped on his answers about Ifill. First he is confident she is a professional then he is not so sure and would have chosen someone else.

Follow the debates tonight including the CSPAN debate hub and you should decide.