For Dems and Country’s Sake, Ifill Should Recuse Herself

Posted by LK on 10/02/08 • Categorized as Politics, Psychology, The Press

The moderator of tonight’s vice-presidential debate, Gwen Ifill, host of PBS’s Washinton Week, is also the author of the early 2009 release Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

One would think, upon first glance, that this favors Biden and the Democrats. Republicans have been howling that Ifill’s participation is a travesty, and that it mocks the concept of a level playing field

The Republicans are wrong.

Katie Couric and Charles Gibson could ask pointed questions of Palin and the quality of those answers reflected overwhelmingly on Palin herself, not on the bias of the interviewers, although admittedly Couric and Gibson were lumped in with the media elite by the usual right wing suspects (as if Limbaugh and Hannity aren’t members of the media elite themselves).

Now questions of the same caliber and nature may well be viewed with skepticism and attributed to ulterior motives, even if Ifill turns out to be the 2008 version of Robert Heinlein’s “Fair Witness”. And Ifill may find herself stopping short of pursuing specific answers for legitimate questions, the answers of which the country deserves to hear.

Biden will be forced to carefully monitor the prevailing atmosphere and perhaps modulate what would have been the appropriate degree of both attack and graciousness. If the past is any guide, that’s not his strong suit.

It’s not too late for Ifill to recuse herself, and would actually be seen, not as caving in to the right (who haven’t fully thought through the ramifications anyway), but as a heroic gesture to insure a debate where the focus and spotlight are on the candidates. Just the candidates.

And Ifill will still receive the hopefully unintended consequence of promotion for her upcoming release.