Todd and Sarah Palin unchallenged in Fox interviews Given the opportunity to address substantive issues in interviews with the political couple, Fox News hosts Hannity and Van Susteren instead pander to their partisan audience. By James Rainey Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 20, 2008 Fox News tough guy Sean Hannity assured us this week he would press Sarah Palin for real answers -- no going easy on the woman who could be the next vice president of the United States. "No topic," Hannity intoned, "is off limits." A couple of nights earlier, Fox's hard-talking lawyer, Greta Van Susteren, promised to take us to unknown places in her exclusive interview with Alaska's so-called First Dude, Todd Palin. "You will see this," Greta declared, "nowhere else!" No, you won't. And mercifully so. Because Hannity and Van Susteren produced three nights of infotainment so frothy, slanted and off-point that they challenged even their cable network's low standards. Fox boss man Roger Ailes would desperately like to have his stepchild accepted into the family of respected news sources. And the reporters who deliver many of Fox's reports have been known to battle their employer's partisan biases. But given a chance to address real issues, and possibly even make news in two encounters with America's most intriguing couple, Fox instead condescended to both Palins, with Van Susteren's cringe-worthy paean to Arctic beauty and Todd Palin's machismo, and Hannity's weak-kneed idolization of Alaska's governor. First, let's look at the two sessions on "Hannity & Colmes," where the host had the responsibility of interviewing a politician who aspires to help lead the nation and who is likely to subject herself to few unscripted moments between now and election day. Sinking to the occasion, Hannity lobbed softball questions, led his pliant subject to safe responses and not so subtly sprinkled his queries with barbs aimed at Barack Obama. He left the questions many Americans have about Palin's record to the end, then signaled that the "so-called controversies" weren't worthy of serious consideration. At one point Hannity rhapsodized about Alaska's low taxes and actually added: "I have to move to Alaska." I hadn't felt so queasy since the women of ABC's "The View" wriggled in their seats and giggled gleefully as Obama visited last spring. Barbara Walters praised the young prince for his "passion, charisma and call for change," not to mention his "very sexy" looks. But at least "The View" ladies allowed Elisabeth Hasselbeck to pepper Obama with questions about his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. And that was daytime TV. Newsman Hannity would countenance no such unpleasantness this week during his precious hour. He smiled dreamily at Palin and said he wished he had more time. And the Republican governor -- hair down, smiling, relaxed -- clearly knew she was playing on her home court. The Fox commentator wasted no time in priming the partisan pump -- suggesting that Obama's recent statements on the economy were for "political gain" and that his call for higher taxes on the rich amounted to "class warfare." If Fox had intended a probing interview, it wouldn't have assigned one of its most contentious mouthpieces. Wouldn't Brit Hume have asked Palin to clarify, for example, her inane assertion that the ability to see Russia from her state's far western shore somehow helped her understand that country? How about pressing the governor when (like Obama) she ducked a straightforward question about whether insurance giant AIG should receive a government bailout? Where was Hannity's incredulity when Palin lapsed into amnesia, again, when asked about her initial support of the "bridge to nowhere"? If I had been thinking clearly, I would have known this interview would have nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with buttressing the Fox brand. Much as John McCain secured his conservative "base" by choosing Sarah Barracuda in the first place, Fox played to its most loyal fans by leaving uncontested the view of Palin as a charming and accomplished everywoman. Van Susteren made that strategy even more apparent during her embarrassing interview with Palin's husband, in which she seemed to morph into a cheerleader. Go Wasilla High Warriors! Go Todd! Todd, don't you know, helped build his own home! Flies his own float plane! Fishes for sockeye! Drives his snow machine 112 miles an hour! Palin somehow maintained his composure and dignity in the face of this frenetic new fan. At one point, perhaps trying to gently guide his interviewer toward a substantive question, he noted that he had worked to improve Alaska's vocational training programs. But Van Susteren, determined to treat her subject as Klondike Jack, ignored that segue into actual public policy. She sighed about the spectacular view from Todd's doorstep lake. "They love you here! They love you here!" Van Susteren fairly squealed, as the First Dude smiled sheepishly. "So that must be fun for you!" Never mind asking Palin about his role in "Troopergate," the investigation into whether his wife tried to use her high office to have her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired. Never mind asking Palin whether his First Dudeliness, who appears to have involved himself deeply in some Alaska policy matters, might play a similar role on, say, national security issues, if his wife is sent to Washington. Going to a final station break, it seemed as if Van Susteren was not promoting her next segment, but announcing a Palin skit on "Saturday Night Live." "Coming up," Van Susteren trumpeted, " . . . you will hear why the Palins' freezer is sometimes packed with moose and caribou! "How does it taste? Todd will tell you!"
You should hear some of the responses Barak gave us at the gym to some real questions also. I've chatted with him at a few functions also. That pool really ain't that deep. So before you go wondering about a Fox interview, understand that NEITHER side is big on much this go around. Of course......it has been that way for a few elections now.
No, I wouldn't. And Obama doesn't go anywhere without someone taking video of him. So show us the video.
Strawman. This is about Fox News and their puff piece interview, not Obama. Poor strawman by the way, as you provide no direct evidence of any conversations or off the record Q&A, and what takes place on the basketball floor or the gym hardly compares to an interview by a member of the mainstream media. You are a right winger who doesn't like Obama, well go figure...
Oh jesus, here we go. 3 years later and all you can come up with is Strawman Red Herring. canyonman is a reasonably objective commentator. Have you even read any of his posts? He has said that he's not that impressed by McCain either. Do you even take 2 seconds to think about what you're posting, you knee-jerk fuck? I read yesterday that he has actually met Obama a few times (no idea whether that's true but that seems to be the case). You're a pathetic lying piece of shit who has no life and has been banned from this site 3 times for acting like a child. Soon you'll start cutting and pasting bizarre pictures and threatening anal penetration which is what you usually do when you're shown to be a liar. Why don't you just leave once and for all? No one want you here, you lying alcoholic sack of shit.
That's crap. In the last five years of being in the gym I haven't seen not one set of video cameras. Oh wait, there was one TV interview. I stand corrected there. But you need to understand that we knew him long before he was becoming your candidate. Nope, there's no video. Sorry about that! We were playing basketball and talking local (mostly) politics and not thinking about your presidential memories. And it's this pre-coached candidate that I know about. I will gladly admit that I really don't know much about this guy we're now seeing. That's been put together for your review and approval.
Okay. So we're supposed to take your claim, and agree with it, because: 1) You witnessed a Q&A session that you haven't given us any details on 2) You say that Obama was very weak at the Q&A session 3) Although Obama is campaigning for the presidency of the United States, and was a state senator, there were no video cameras. 4) We should trust you that there were none at this because you have never seen one set of video cameras before. You've convinced me that he was terrible at that Q&A session!