A media "backlash" against ABC news interviewer Charlie Gibson in the wake of his series of question and answer sessions with Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin has largely failed to develop, save reflexive criticism from conservative columnists who leapt to insulate Palin from questions about her competence.
Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post Saturday that Gibson's query about Palin's views on the "Bush Doctrine" was misleading because no consensus exists about what the "Bush Doctrine" is. He wrote:
Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.
This morning, William Kristol in the New York Times wrote of the media reaction to the Palin pick:
The media establishment was horrified. Its members expressed their disapproval. Palin became more popular. They got even more frustrated. And so we had the spectacle last week of ABC's Charlie Gibson, one of the most civil of the media bigwigs, unable to help himself from condescending to Palin as if he were a senior professor forced to waste time administering a Ph.D. exam to a particularly unpromising graduate student.
I have to disagree with Kristol's assertion that the "media establishment was horrified" and "expressed their disapproval". The media establishment was surprised at the unconventional pick, not horrified. And it was not "disapproval" that the establishment expressed, but puzzlement about the wisdom of the pick, doubt about Palin's credentials, and appropriate cynicism about the motivation for the pick. These are appropriate reactions.
Both pundits' use of the term 'condescending' catches my eye. Is that an acknowledgement that on some level Palin is not on the same level, in terms of experience and knowledge, as Gibson? I cannot imagine someone using that term to criticise a media figure's interaction with Obama, McCain or Hillary Clinton.
But most of all, Gibson's tone or even the substance of his questions is irrelevant.
Whatever can be said about Gibson's performance, it has nothing to do with whether Sarah Palin has enough experience to serve as vice-president and if need be president, whether she and McCain obscure her long support for congressional earmarks and the "bridge to nowhere", whether she has a management style we want in a president, why as mayor, her police department made rape victims pay for the rape exam, and other questions.
There is room for legitimate media self-critique, but that's not what Kristol and Krauthammer are doing. Kristol doesn't explore what he describes as Gibson's flaw and offers no remedy. Krauthammer's piece is concerned with defending against criticism she is so unaware of foreign affairs she didn't know that "Bush Doctrine" refers to Bush's strategy of preemptive war against states believed to post a potential threat to US interests.
In charging Gibson with condescension, these two decidedly elite, establishment pundits distract their readers from more pressing questions about Palin's fitness for the job.
