Fears Going into Thursday Night’s Vice Presidential Debate

I want to preface this by saying that I am a Republican, I will vote for McCain (though he would not have been my first choice), and I was thrilled with the Sarah Palin pick. 

This morning I read a story on foxnews.com.  It seems that choice of Gwen Ifill, who by the way is black, to fill the role of moderator in Thursday night’s Vice Presidential debate is being questioned.  She has written a book (The Breakthrough), and its premise is that ‘the civil rights movement has cleared the way for post-racial politicians to ascend to new heights.’  In layman’s terms, it is a book that chronicles the rise of African Americans in American politics since the civil right’s movement began.  Obama’s success, among that of others, is discussed in the book.

The point made by Foxnews and the National Review is that her appropriateness as an unbiased debate moderator is now being called into question because of this.  While I can understand why a person would be given pause when presented with the basic facts of the issue, I do not believe that it is fair to assume that because she is black, and wants to write a book that spotlights the recent political successes of African American, then she must be pro-Obama, and as a consequence is not professional enough to moderate a VP candidate debate.  Considering the subject of the book, it has to include Obama, just as it has to include Clarence Thomas (I am just assuming that it does).  At this point, I do not think it is realistic to think a person could find an intelligent person in the media who is not already leaning one way or another (Personally, I am convinced that 95% of media personalities wear ankle weights on their right legs to keep them from toppling over).

When Sarah was chosen as the VP candidate, some were questioning the vetting process in the McCain camp.  I think they would vet the moderator of the VP debate with almost the same scrutiny as they did the actual VP, considering the weight that the VP choice has been given in this campaign.  As a result, I am now beginning to question the McCain camp’s vetting process also.  I am less concerned with the book than I am that Ifill is an anchor for PBS, the home of Bill Moyers.  If they did not vet Ifill well enough to determine that she is ‘pro-Obama,’ then that is their problem.  I’m sure that it would have been easy enough to discover that she was publishing a book!  In the end, I still do not think that there is enough evidence of her perceived ‘bias’ to recuse her from consideration as a moderator, and I will even give her credit for not pushing her book to press before the election.  She could obviously make more money, and hedge her bets in the case of an Obama loss, if she were to release the book during the election.

In truth, I believe that this, unfortunately, is an example of the newest strategy regarding Palin to come out of the McCain camp.  They have observed the fact that the public has risen to her defense in the wake of the flood of unwarranted attacks on her coming from the left.  This has been good for her, up to this point, but as it begins to look like a strategy, it will quickly wear thin.

The current cry coming from the National Review and other conservative publications that Ifill cannot be objective, begins to ring hollow in the light of all of this.  It looks like a preemptive strike to make Ifill look bad if she asks Palin any tough questions, calls het to the carpet on an answer, or lets Biden savage her.  I believe this is being floated to force Ifill to water-down her approach to Palin in the hope that she will not want to even give the appearance of any bias.  Mark my words, the McCain campaign will not ask her to recuse herself from the debate.  They want her there, and they want her (Ifill) on the defensive.

I believe the McCain strategy of making Palin look like a victim is a mistake.  I do not have a lot of faith in the American public to be able to understand what is going on in general, but at this point they have been conditioned by recent events to be aware of unfair attacks on Palin.  If Ifill is an unfair moderator, and if Biden attempts to savage Palin, it will be readily apparent.  The McCain camp and the National Review do not need to do the attempt to set the stage for it.

I have a friend (www.exploded.wordpress.net) who has called on the McCain camp to let Sarah be herself, and take her off the leash.  He is absolutely right.  She needs to be allowed to go back to the Sarah we saw bowing-up to Charlie Gibson. 

Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling about this debate.  I am afraid that she is going to be given a list of talking points and a script by her McCain handlers in the hope that she will be able to stay on message while Biden makes an ass of himself.  If this is the case, she will look off-balance, and she will indeed be savaged by Biden.  You cannot be a ‘pit bull’ and a victim at the same time, and remember by definition victims are losers.  My greatest fear is that she breaks down and we will have a Ferarro incident.  If that happens we all might as well vote Obama because it will be over.