Gwen Ifill

Not big shock here:

David Gregory will take the reins as moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," the Huffington Post has learned. Gregory has been a leading contender for the permanent spot since Tom Brokaw stepped in as interim moderator following Tim Russert's death in June.

In recent weeks, a short list including Gregory, Andrea Michell, Gwen Ifill, and Chuck Todd had been considered the top candidates for the position, while Katie Couric and Ted Koppel were viewed as dark horses.

I actually predicted this back in October. I’m not that thrilled with this pick, especially after seeing Gwen Ifill’s name on the list. Is it too soon to break the white guy monopoly on the Sunday morning talk shows? Even if they wanted to keep the white guy club going, how about someone like John Harwood? He’s smart and seems really center on the issues.

The answer is simple - no followups. This was something the McCain campaign pushed to get changed. Gwen Ifill was not allowed to ask any followups to any questions. This gave Palin an excuse to dodge questions, which she did really well. So while the pundits are trying to spin this as being some "great performance", it wasn't. It was like moving the outfield wall in by a couple hundred feet and then calling someone the home run king.

My God could Gwen Ifill have been any more slanted towards Biden? Ok - had to get that little joke out of my system.

Despite having one hell of a cold, I managed to watch the whole thing. Honestly, it was exactly what I expected it to be. No massive screw ups from either candidate. One small thing I did notice was that Palin was looking at an awful lot of notes while answering. Perhaps I picked that up since I was watching and not trying to live blog it.

I don't see tonight's performances helping or hurting either campaign significantly. It was basically a wash. Palin may have calmed some nerves on the right, but she didn't bring anyone over. The same with Biden and his known history of gafffs. I do however think Palin fell flat on her face when she tried to play Reagan with her "there you go again Joe" line. Watching the reaction thing on CNN, it appears the focus group also thought the same thing.

So I am sure people on the left will be upset the Palin didn't totally implode, but that's not a problem. She now has a month of doing interviews and more time for Couric style blunders with no more debates to try and recoup a little comfort amongst the population.

Also I notice the polls over all are showing that Biden won. I have to agree. Yeah I am somewhat partial, but putting that aside, I saw answers out of Biden with great substance. I didn't see that so much out of Palin. It also helps restore a little faith in the American electorate since it appears they may have seen the same thing.

UPDATE:

I've been reading blog reactions from both sides of the spectrum. Needless to say the left says Biden won, the right says Palin won. The interesting thing from the right though is that this is some how a game changer. When Obama named Biden as his running mate, the right was quick to say that a Presidential race isn't won by the running mate. This is very true, but not is seems to be ignored by the right. If anything this may have made the race more where it should be - Obama versus McCain, and in that sense McCain is losing rather badly.

Kurtz is definitely not part of the "liberal media", yet he isn't buying the crap that Ifill will be biased towards Biden/Obama tomorrow night:

You read that right - McCain's campaign is saying they didn't have any idea that this book was coming. The problem is that there were AP articles talking about this book weeks before McCain's campaign agreed to the debate and Ifill as the moderator. So if they didn't know, it looks like the McCain campaign just didn't do their homework.

I turned on Morning Joe and heard him going off about Gwen Ifill moderating the debate tomorrow night. His complaint is that she has authored a book; The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama . I hadn't heard about this book, so I started Googleing it. One of the first links I found was from none other than the National Review by none other than Malkin:

My dictionary defines “moderator” as “the nonpartisan presiding officer of a town meeting.” On Thursday, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill will serve as moderator for the first and only vice presidential debate. The stakes are high. The Commission on Presidential Debates, with the assent of the two campaigns, decided not to impose any guidelines on her duties or questions.

But there is nothing “moderate” about where Ifill stands on Barack Obama. She’s so far in the tank for the Democratic presidential candidate, her oxygen delivery line is running out.

And how does Malkin know exactly what is in Ifill's book when it won't be released until the very day our new President takes office, January 20, 2009? Reading the editorial review, it just says she is talking about the breakthrough of African-Americans in politics. Nothing about it being specifically about Obama.

So could this become the reason the McCain campaign does a last minute pull out of the debate? I Wouldn't be shocked if that's the case. If that's the case then how about Tom Brokaw, who has been acting as a "liaison" between the McCain campaign and NBC?

His [Brokaw's] mission, he said, was to assure the candidate's aides that -- despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular -- Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates -- until his name was invoked.

"One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, 'If it's an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won't go,' " Mr. Brokaw said. "My name came up, and they said, 'Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw.' "

Here's the problem. Both candidates agreed to these moderators. Olbermann and Matthews' bias towards Obama or the Democrats is not newly found. It has been obvious before these campaigns even started. So then why didn't the McCain campaign say, "hold it right there - these moderators are too biased"? The answer is simple. Because when they agreed to these debates, McCain's campaign wasn't in self-destruction mode.

McCain has destroyed his chances at becoming President and he has now echoed his inner Hillary with a constant attack on the "liberal media". The problem is it's not working. The media was in bed with the McCain campaign for so long and people know it. Now that McCain has become so bad that they had no option but to start reporting the truth, McCain is out to blame them. This really echoes the similarities between George Bush and John McCain, two people both unable to admit their own problems. That is more of the same.

The McCain campaign is threatening Gwen Ifill if she asks to many/hard foreign policy questions Thursday night:

Of course the moron Steve Doocey now says people are more concerned about "domestic issues". Funny that when they talk about John McCain they say the voters are more concerned about foreign policy.

So this should be chalked up as another example that McCain would put our nation in danger just to win an election. This man is a disgrace.