The Palin Test: A liberal litmus for the media

If you were uncertain why people don't like and don't trust the mainstream media, all you have to do is look at the treatment of Sarah Palin and you will get the picture. Reactions to her have become a virtual litmus test for media bias.

Forget about left-wing comedians on MTV or Letterman. They are paid to belittle people who support traditional American values, and they do it very well. Ignore the New York Times, which has an agenda a mile long and a little to the left of Joseph Stalin. That particular devouring leopard will not change its spots, and everyone knows it.

But a few people still cling to a stubborn belief in the fairness of network news the way that Barack Obama thinks small-town Americans cling to guns and religion. But if what happens on ABC, NBC and CBS is reckoned as fairness, then it was also fair to throw the Christians in with the lions. Indeed, the visceral hatred that many liberals feel for Sarah Palin has become engraved on the faces of Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, Keith Olbermann and other supposedly neutral journalists. (All right, Olbermann really isn't neutral - that was just a joke.)

Gibson's interview, the first that Palin gave after her nomination, was typical of those that followed, and instructive in just how deceitful, biased and dangerous the national media outlets have become.

In particular, if you look at the full transcript of the interview and compare it to the parts that Gibson used on ABC's "World News," you will see two different Sarah Palins. The one sitting across from Charlie Gibson was nuanced, insistent and thoughtful, but the one that Gibson cut-and-pasted in the editing room was a cross between Ma Kettle and Dr. Strangelove.

It is plain that Gibson went into the interview believing that a woman who was governor of Alaska is not qualified to be president of the United States, and he aimed to prove that. Thus, he began by asking Palin if she had "ever met a foreign head of state."

Now, of course, he knew full well that she had not, or if she had it was because of some incidental contact. Governors typically have their hands full managing the affairs of their own "state" without setting up their own "state department" to compete with the one in Washington, D.C.

But that doesn't mean Palin hasn't dealt with foreign countries, and she wisely tried to steer Gibson back to reality by talking about what governors really do. She told him that Alaska's "international trade activities bring in many leaders of other countries," but Gibson didn't want to hear it - and he didn't want you to hear it either. He cut that out of the interview.

Mind you, Palin still managed to get her point across - the answer that Gibson used emphasized that the governor considered her Alaskan experience to be an alternative to "politics as usual." She acknowledged that there are plenty of politicians with a "big, fat resume that shows decades and decades in [the] Washington establishment" who will thus - as she adroitly noted - have had "opportunities to meet heads of state." But Gibson then cut out her coup de grace when she said that Americans "are getting sick and tired of that self-dealing and kind of that closed door, good old boy network that has been the Washington elite."

When moving on to foreign policy substance, Gibson broached the topic of Russia's invasion of Georgia, but he clearly was not prepared for the scope of Palin's knowledge on this topic as he decided to cut out about 70 percent of her lengthy response. Is it possible she sounded too knowledgeable for Gibson to be able to make her look bad? Hmmm, interesting theory.

In any case, this is also the segment of the interview where Gibson's oh-so-cute editing was used to try to make it look like Palin said she understood Russia because it is close to Alaska.

Here's the interview Gibson aired:

Palin: [W]e've got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep…

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

This segment of the interview has provided comedians and commentators with endless gaglines about how Palin foolishly believes living next to another country provides foreign policy experience. But let's look at what she really said. Here's the unedited interview:

PALIN: [W]e've got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep…

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there. I think it was unfortunate. That manifestation that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the race toward a more democratic nation with democratic ideals. That's why we have to keep an eye on Russia.

And, Charlie, you're in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They're very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they're doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I'm giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relations with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We've learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union.

Oh no, Gibson must have thought! She is actually answering my question in a coherent, comprehensive way! This won't fit in with my plan to score career points by demonstrating to the public how dangerously incompetent she is. What shall I do?

Whether the answer eventually occurred to Gibson or to one of his producers is not known, but the answer was clear - just cut out all of the parts of the answer that show Palin to have a valid and valuable point of view.

And most importantly, where Palin was using her experience as Alaska's governor to show that she and her constituents have an immediate, proximate interest in good relations with Russia, Gibson intentionally distorted her answer so that she looked like a naive New Age goofball who would peer across the Bering Strait and get a glimpse into the Russian soul.

Which brings us to Katie Couric's more recent interview with Palin on the "CBS Evening News." Couric couldn't let the tasty morsel about Alaska being near Russia drop to the ground without getting a lick in.

Couric asked Palin the following: "You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?"

Of course, you and I both know that Palin should have told Couric directly that she had never said that, but Palin tried to find a polite way to re-direct the question instead. She started out by again talking about the "very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada," but then she clearly became exasperated and said, "It's funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don't know, you know … reporters.

Couric: Mocked?

Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

Mocked is clearly the word that most Americans would have when watching either Charlie Gibson or Katie Couric interviewing Sarah Palin, but Palin again pushed ahead and tried to answer the question. Eventually she said this:

"As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state."

Now this is a peculiar statement, and one that Palin might have been keeping intentionally vague because she did not know whether she should speak frankly about U.S. military information she had received as governor.

Turns out that Palin, in her role as commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard, has received briefings about Russian military plane incursions right to the edge of Alaskan airspace. That explains why she spoke cryptically of Putin "rearing his head."

The CBS reporter, Scott Conroy, who detailed this in the wake of the Couric interview, however, seemed to be unable to recognize the connection to what Palin had told Couric. Instead of realizing that Palin's comment about "Putin rear[ing] his head and com[ing] into the airspace of the United States of America" was a reference to those recent military incursions, he assumed she was talking about Putin's actual diplomatic visits to the United States. He thus chided Palin for inaccuracy by noting that Putin would have visited Washington by traveling across the Atlantic.

But you don't have to be smarter than a fifth grader to realize that Palin was really talking about Putin's military threat against the United States, and when she asked "Where do they go?" she wasn't talking about Putin's valet and chef, but about his fighter jets and bombers.

Some people are terrified of Sarah Palin. They don't need to be. They should be terrified of Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric and the other ex officio ministers of information who attempt to exert control over what Americans learn and what they don't learn about our government and our leaders.

. Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com