Monday, October 27, 2008

"Are You Joking? Is this a Joke?"

Joe Biden shows us how to handle stupid questions.



Expect Fox News to give Barbara West her own show. Stupid liberal media.

UPDATE - Maybe Fox News hasn't given her her own show yet, but she will be a guest on O'Reilly's propaganda machine tonight, as reported by Think Progress. I can only imagine the leading questions about her leading questions - "Do you think that Biden was being sexist or just hates women reporters in general?" "Do you think liberals are attacking you because Obama is a Marxist, a socialist, or because liberals just hate America?"

Also reported by think progress, her husband is a GOP media consultant. Nice. I wonder if that will make it into the interview?

Also reported - they'll do it live!

2 comments:

Warm Apple Pie said...

"Barbara West?"

Oh, you mean "Barbara the News Anchor."

"Mr. Biden, you said Senator Obama will be tested in his first six months. Who do you think will test him? Bill Ayers? Reverend Wright? Tony Rezko?"

Warm Apple Pie said...

Age of the loaded spring gun question, Pants. Yes or no posers, in-the-tank softballs, rat maze queries with no hope of escape.

Look, I'm just a simple soccer ball stitcher from Calcutta, India, but journalistic integrity seems a pretty easy road.

Interview questions should be tough, but fair. I'm not feeding you Gerber's or teeing you up like Hannity ("Governor Palin, Barack Obama doesn't wear a flagpin, but you do. Why? Why is the American flag so important to you?"), nor am I grinding ideological axes ("Senator Obama, how can you fight terrorism when you are friends with a former domestic terrorist"), nor not asking a follow-up question - ie., the more important question.

Good example: here is a transcript portion from Hannity's first interview with Governor Palin. Notice no follow-ups. Why not press her with the obvious next question, just like it is fair to ask Obama a follow-up beyond what's your relationship with Reverend Wright. You got to get past the canned answer to call yourself a journalist:

HANNITY: Let me ask you this, because there have been a number of controversies. I'll let you give a quick reaction to them. That have as the 30 mini army of reporters and op research people in the Obama campaign. Did you ban books in the Alaska library? Did you try to ban books in the Alaska library? In the Wasilla Library?

PALIN: No. But I got a kick out of that one also. Yes, no. No banned books. No desire to ban a book. That list of banned books, though, that we saw there that included "Harry Potter," which, of course, had not even been written or published before I was in there. To be accused of banning books, no.

HANNITY: It's false.

PALIN: False.

HANNITY: Never part of an effort to secede — have Alaska secede from the Union?

PALIN: No. False. Always been a Republican, not been a part of a party that has wanted to secede.

HANNITY: Did you only want to teach creationism in school and not evolution?

PALIN: No. In fact, growing up in a school teacher's house with a science teacher as a dad, you know, I have great respect for science being taught in our science classes and evolution to be taught in our science classes.

HANNITY: You weren't supporting Pat Buchanan for president? You did have a button on.

PALIN: I did wear a button at his book signing, or one of the events. Because see here, a presidential candidate coming to little ole' Wasilla, one year. And we all showed up. It was an honor to see anyone of that stature come to our city.

HANNITY: All right. "The Bridge to Nowhere."

PALIN: Yes.

HANNITY: Did you rigidly support it and did you change your view on it? Because the Democrats are saying, no, no, no, she originally supported it and she said she said she opposed it.

PALIN: Well, I killed the Bridge to Nowhere. And you know, I think I ruffled some feathers there, also, with our congressman who had been requesting that bridge for so many years.

What we needed to do up there in Alaska, was find some good transportation between the two land bodies there. And we did. We found that with an improved ferry system between Ketchikan and its airport. But, the Bridge to Nowhere is, as I've been saying in my speeches, if it's something that Alaskans really want and support, which at this time, they're not willing to support to such an extent that we'll pay for it ourselves, we better kill the bridge because we know the rest of the nation's not going to pay for it.