Both
in January and in May, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian
Williams conducted softball interviews with Barack Obama,
holding up a favorable news magazine and asking how his loved
ones, like his late mother, would feel about the slobbery
covers.
In January, he asked: "How does this feel, of all the
honors that have come your way, all the publicity?"
In May, it was: "Last time we were together, I handed
you a copy of Newsweek, it was the first time you'd held
it in your hands with you on the cover. Have you yet held this
in your hands?"
When Williams aired an interview with John McCain and Sarah
Palin for three nights last week, there was no talk of gooey
photographs or publicity "honors." The Republican candidates
were grilled on how they dared to criticize Obama. It started on
Wednesday with Williams suggesting to McCain that Joe Biden had
not committed a gaffe when he claimed Obama would be tested
quickly "like young John Kennedy" with an international crisis:
"One of your very closest friends in the Senate, Joe Lieberman,
said on Face the Nation, quote, ‘our enemies will test
the new President early. And it has happened throughout modern
history.'" But Biden didn't say they'd test any new President,
he said they would test "young" Obama, not McCain.
When McCain and Palin each blasted Biden for suggesting his own
running mate would spur U.S. enemies to start a crisis, Williams
was unmoved: "I'm missing how that's different from Senator
Lieberman saying quote ‘our enemies will test the new President
early.'"
On
Thursday, October 23, Williams also objected to Bill Ayers being
described as a domestic terrorist: "Are the people who set fire
to American cities during the ’60s terrorists under this
definition? Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist under this
definition, Governor?" When Palin answered by denouncing Ayers,
Williams kept pressing: "I'm just asking what other categories
you would put in there, abortion clinic bombers? Protesters in
cities where fires were started, Molotov cocktails were thrown,
people died?"
Williams also pushed Palin to define "What is an elite," since
she's attacked elitism, and whether she considers herself a
"feminist," since she's attacked liberal feminists. When it came
to Reverend Wright, Williams only wanted to know if McCain would
stay quiet: "Are you going to keep your promise not to involve
Reverend Wright in the campaign?" Where was this kind of
grilling in January and May, when Obama's alleged hot seat was
an easy chair?
For more, see the October
23,
24 and
27 CyberAlerts.
