Last night on Barbara’s Walters’ annually insipid “10 Most Fascinating People” special, America was shown such a textbook example of media bias, hypocrisy and incompetence that it bordered on parody. Unfortunately, almost no one knows the full magnitude of what I am referring to because numerous important truths have been conveniently omitted from the narrative surrounding the story.
During the very short portion of Walters’ interview with Sarah Palin that was shown to the public, Walters managed to refer to Palin as “scary,” “polarizing,” and “uninformed” (twice). She also regurgitated the “what do you read?” question, blamed Palin for Republicans not taking the Senate (wait, I thought the media would make someone a hero if they thought they saved the Senate for Democrats!), and questioned the validity of her marriage. All of this happened on a special where the toughest question is generally “whom are you dating?” and coming right behind an entire hour where Oprah wasn’t asked about any of the numerous scandals from her twenty-five-year career.
OK, so ABC and Barbara Walters are biased against Sarah Palin. Obviously this is not news. However, what should be “news” is that Walters would have the audacity to twice refer to Palin as “uninformed.” This was outrageous not just because Walters didn’t even attempt to give an actual example of Palin being “uninformed,” but also because Walters herself has proven to be comically “uninformed” when it comes to alleged Palin transgressions.
When I was promoting the first release of my documentary film, “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted,” and after Walters nearly put her shaking finger through my chest while we debated on “The View,” I did Walters’ radio show and was shocked when Walters revealed that she was likely one of the many Obama voters who was under the delusion that Palin had told Charlie Gibson, “I can see Russia from my house,” rather than what Palin had actually said which was the very different, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
While two scientific polls that I commissioned prove that huge numbers of Obama voters were fooled by the media into think that “I can see Russia from my house” was Palin’s statement and not Tina Fey mocking a simple fact stated by Palin, I had naively figured that an esteemed media figure like Walters would know better. But, as this audio proves, Walters was dangerously and, rather hilariously, “uninformed.” (For the record, Palin is aware of this episode, and did very subtly refer to it during last year’s interview with Walters, but refrained from blasting her with it in an effort to remain classy.)
Don’t hold your breath to hear that truly “gotcha” moment anywhere in the mainstream media.
As for the “reading” question, this is now officially as old and tired as Walters herself. I asked Palin to clarify that infamous Couric moment almost two years ago and she has been asked at least three other times since then, and yet Walters didn’t seem to realize that during her latest Palin interview. Unfortunately, my analysis of that Couric moment two weeks ago here at The Daily Caller has been officially vindicated, as MSNBC is already mocking the no-win answer Palin gave to Walters.
There was one important revelation from this Palin interview that doesn’t seem to be getting much attention as of yet. When asked “the question” about running for president, Palin responded in a significantly different way than she has in the past. She specifically said that her threshold for running would be that no one else could beat Obama and that she had the best chance to do so, which is a far cry from “I’ll run if no one else will do it.” While anyone who claims to know what Palin is going to do is lying, this seems to me to be the strongest evidence yet that she has left the door wide open to not running.
Regardless, there is no doubt that she has given plenty of ammunition to anyone who would like to argue either side of the “will she or won’t she” debate, which proves once again that Sarah Palin is a lot of things, but “uninformed” about how the game is played is not one of them.
John Ziegler is currently a documentary filmmaker who most recently released a movie on the 2008 election called, “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.” He has also been in radio talk show host in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Louisville and Nashville. Ziegler has written two books and has appeared live on numerous national television shows including the Today Show, The View, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC.