Media puppet theatre

Fresh off comments from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis that Sarah Palin would continue to hide from real interviews until such time as she "feels comfortable doing it" and "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference", it seems Rick has found his huckleberry: ABC News's Charlie Gibson. They got their man, no need to take off the training wheels yet.

The interview is a coup for Gibson, who also had the only sit-down with McCain during the Republican National Convention. During that interview, he did not question McCain about Palin's family, a decision that he fretted about for hours, Gibson said in a Web log posted last week.

"Once you know about her daughter's pregnancy, once you know about her husband's political interest in the Alaska Independent Party, once you know about the special nature of their latest child, I think that's enough," Gibson wrote.

The relevant questions about Palin all related to her experience and policy positions as a mayor and governor of Alaska.

ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said he did not believe Gibson's stated stance about family questions was key to securing the interview.

In the words of TPM's Josh Marshall "It will be unwatchable." He expounds:

Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the 'multiple interviews' because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won't happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it's pretty clear that that is what this will be.

So rest easy, we won't have any of those 'tough' questions that are just so indelicate for someone who might be our President if the 70 plus POW with the face cancer kicks off within 4 years. You'll get to hear about mooseburgers, 'hockey mom', and that bridge to nowhere she swears she opposed. But don't expect much in the way of substance. Which is just the way McCain wants it and ABC was only too happy to oblige, just so they could be first. This is the way our leaders get chosen.

That hard question shit isn't the current media's job, its the job of the imaginary future media that will be doing the proper candidate vetting sometime in the nebulous beyond, perhaps from a flying car on the moon base. After Gibson gets pilloried for his fluff ski lodge and burger review, expect him to take it to heart by asking some real tough questions.......of Barack Obama.