Charlie Gibson is the New Dan Rather

L.A. Times rebukes ABC for distorting Palin remarks
Charlie Gibson misquotes governor, assuming she saw U.S. in ‘holy war’
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The Los Angeles Times was among the news outlets crying foul after ABC’s interview yesterday with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, her first since Sen. John McCain named her his running mate.
The Times took Charlie Gibson to task for distorting statements Palin made about the Iraq war at her former Assemblies of God church in Wasilla, Alaska.
A well-circulated video shows Palin asking the congregation to pray that the nation’s leaders would send troops to Iraq “on a task that is from God.” But Gibson, apparently getting his information from an Associated Press story, frames the question with the assumption Palin is contending the U.S. was sending troops to Iraq on a mission from God.
“Are we fighting a holy war?” Gibson asked.
Palin disputed the characterization, pointing out she was paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, who said, “Let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God’s side.”
The Times said Gibson “went on to take a second part of her comments out of context. Palin had asked the group to pray ‘that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.'”
But Gibson dropped her reference to praying, the Times said, and instead quoted Palin as saying the war was God’s plan.
He asked if she believed the country was sending her son on a task from God.
“I don’t know if the task is from God, Charlie,” she responded, adding that she was proud of Track for “serving something greater than himself.”
New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley said that during the interview, Gibson, who “sat back in his chair, impatiently wriggling his foot,” had “the skeptical, annoyed tone of a university president who agrees to interview the daughter of a trustee but doesn’t believe she merits admission.”
The McCain campaign also criticized ABC’s characterization of Palin’s statements.
“Gov. Palin’s full statement was VERY different from the way Gibson characterized it,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a prepared statement.
“Gibson cut the quote — where she was clearly asking for the church TO PRAY THAT IT IS a task from God, not asserting that it is a task from God,” he said.
“Palin’s statement is an incredibly humble statement, a statement that this campaign stands by 100 percent, and a sentiment that any religious American will share,” Bounds wrote.
Much was made by many pundits of Palin’s apparent inability to recognize the term “Bush Doctrine.”
But columnist Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post said he’s “not sure anyone is entirely clear on what the Bush Doctrine is at this particular moment.”
Mike Rappaport of the blog Right Coast called Gibson’s approach “bad form and bad journalism,” asking whether she agrees with the doctrine, without defining it. Rappaport pointed to Wikipedia’s entry on the Bush Doctrine, which documents that it’s a phrase associated with several different foreign policy positions and strategies.
For the rest of the article……….. LINK HERE

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Wild Thing’s comment………..
Gibson should just admit he was acting as a surrogate for Obama. This is media bias at is worst! They tried hard to do a deliberate deception.
To their dissapointment I am sure they still failed at making Sarah look like an airhead. They failed at getting what they wanted… even in the edited interview she still came across as calm, likable and knowledgeable.
And this will not be the end of their dirty tricks. The debates are coming and the emphasis in the debates will be how to destroy McCain and Palin.
Obama is a total coward and so far will not meet McCain in a Townhall meeting. COWARD OBAMA!!!!!!!
If Republican candidates on any level continue to do taped interviews which I am totally against…….then Republican politicians need to go into these interviews with their own video crew. Even if it’s just an Aide with a video camera and they need to document every minute of it. Then when the press pulls this they need to release their own version of the interview. The press has gotten away with this stuff for too long.
Otherwise ONLY do LIVE interviews period!
ABC also not only edited the interview for content, but, they also blatantly edited the visuals by using using jump cuts.
I sent an email off and will put the LINK HERE in case anyone else would like to too.
The show I sent it to was 20/20

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.