MSNBC Bombs in Blogosphere

"Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the 'multiple interviews' because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won't happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it's pretty clear that that is what this will be."

First, if I'm a TV guy heading north for the big Palin sit-down, I want as much time as possible. The more time, the more questions. You think Gibson is going to worry about being on his "best behavior"?

Second, while his interview with McCain last week included a number of easy questions, there was also this:

"Can you look the country straight in the eye and say Sarah Palin has the qualities and has enough experience to be commander in chief?"

And this: "I'm quoting you, 'Senator Obama does not have the national security experience and background to be president.' Sarah Palin does?"

Lost in the Sarah hoopla is the original question of McCain's judgment, which Andrew Sullivan returns to:

"What we have learned about John McCain from his selection of Sarah Palin is that he is as impulsive and reckless a decision-maker as George W. Bush. We know this not because of what we have learned about this Pentecostalist populist since she exploded on the scene last Friday morning (and God knows we have learned more than we ever wanted). We know it because of how McCain made the decision . . .

"McCain picked someone he had only met once before. I repeat: he picked someone he had only met once before. His vetting chief sat Palin down for a face-to-face interview the Wednesday before last. It's very hard to overstate how nutty and irresponsible this is. Would any corporate chieftain pick a number two on those grounds and not be dismissed by his board for recklessness? . . .

"There is virtually no record anywhere of her views on foreign policy in the public record. There is one documented instance. It came in an interview with the Alaskan Business Monthly in December 2006. She was asked about the central issue of McCain's campaign: the surge in Iraq, which he championed. She said she hadn't focused on the war with Iraq but had heard about the surge 'on the news.' She then said that she hoped there was an 'exit plan.' That was it. So on the central issue of McCain's campaign, Palin took the opposite position to John McCain."

I eagerly await the campaign's explanation, or Charlie Gibson's question.

Finally, the New York Post brings back Reverend Wright:

"He almost wrecked Barack Obama's presidential dreams, and now firebrand pastor Jeremiah Wright has helped destroy a Dallas church worker's marriage -- and her job, The Post has learned.

"Elizabeth Payne, 37, said she had a steamy sexual affair with the controversial, racially divisive man of the cloth while she was an executive assistant at a church headed by a popular Wright protégé."