From what I could tell between the ham-handed jump cuts and content edits, Governor Sarah Palin stood strong against a rapid-fire barrage of pointed questions posed by interviewer Charlie Gibson of ABC News and presented herself and her worldview quite well.
I’d advise Governor Palin to only agree to live interviews in the future, though. You could tell by the edits that they were lopping out huge portions of her answers, especially in the first segment. I doubt they edited it to present Palin in a more complimentary light.
The portions of the interview aired on ABC’s World News Tonight focused on Governor Palin’s experience, her views on inviting Georgia into NATO and Russia’s possible reaction, how strongly she would fight the War on Terror, and her “Task from God” comment about the Iraq war.
Palin provided strong, definitive answers to all questions posed despite Gibson seeming to have lost focus at one point and needing to have an answer repeated.
Personally, I think she could have repeated McCain’s “Gates of Hell” comment when Gibson pressed her on following terrorists over the Pakistani border, but that’s a message issue not a knowledge issue.
What Palin lacked in coaching she more than made up for in directness and fluidity on the issues. She said all the right things and she answered the questions.
Compared to Obama’s evasive performance with Gibson this July (below) it is a triumph, but any interview where she didn’t fall off the chair in a fetal position would be five stars compared to that Obama mess.
UPDATE: I’ve just gone back and reviewed the original “Pray that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God” comment and then ABC’s unfairly edited version (Minus the “Pray” part of the statement that makes it a request and not as if she’s claiming to know God’s will). Disgusting bias. I would not blame her for canceling the remainder of the scheduled interviews.
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