Gibson versus Palin

It's just tiresome.

Why can't the top news anchor for one of the Big Three networks just be a journalist? Why has it become common-place for supposed reporters to interject into their reporting their own commentary? Isn't that what commentators and columnists are paid to do (which is supposed to be different than what reporters are supposed to do)?

Again we have Charlie Gibson simply making his political points:

GIBSON: Can you look the country in the eye and say "I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?"
GIBSON: And you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"
GIBSON: Didn't that take some hubris?
GIBSON: But this is not just reforming a government. This is also running a government on the huge international stage in a very dangerous world. When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?
GIBSON: I know. I'm just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy.
GIBSON: Have you ever met a foreign head of state?

Charlie Gibson made his very biased political point (over and over again) that he clearly doesn't think she should be Vice President.

He then moved on to try to goad Governor Palin into declaring that she would go to war with Russia, support Israel bombing Iran, and that she'd invade Pakistan:

GIBSON: You think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.
GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?
GIBSON: So if we wouldn't second guess it and they decided they needed to do it because Iran was an existential threat, we would cooperative or agree with that.
GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right.
GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?
GIBSON: Do we have a right to anticipatory self-defense? Do we have a right to make a preemptive strike again another country if we feel that country might strike us?
GIBSON: Do we have the right to be making cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?
GIBSON: But, Governor, I'm asking you: We have the right, in your mind, to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.
GIBSON: I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes? That you think we have the right to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government, to go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?

Are you kidding me? "I got lost in a blizzard of words there" ?!? I wish the Governor would have rebuked him there with something along the lines of:
"I beg your pardon?" (not asked in a meak way either)
or
"It's clear that you don't like my answers, but aren't I the one who is supposed to answer questions here?"

Can you imagine Walter Cronkite or Peter Jennings rebuking a candidate they begged to interview because the interviewee wouldn't frame their answers to their own liking?!? I don't recall Gibson being that blatantly rude during his interview with Senator Obama (when the Senator droned on and on with almost every answer, quite often turning his response sharply from the question asked). Gibson wasn't even quite that rude when last he interviewed Senator McCain!

If this were going to be a give-and-take exchange between the host (notice I didn't use the word reporter) and a guest then Governor Palin would have been free to frequently interupt the host, not just the other way around. That is the kind of exchange The O'Reilly Factor presented when Bill O'Reilly and Senator Barack Obama went at it (for 30-40 minutes). I'm sure that Charlie Gibson thinks himself well above Bill O'Reilly. That's too bad (not just because Gibson would be wrong in thinking that) since at least O'Reilly is honest about what kind of exchange he is going to have with a Presidential nominee.