ABC says no issue off table for Palin

By DAVID BAUDER Associated Press Writer

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Sep 8th, 2008 | NEW YORK -- Charles Gibson's producer says no issue is off the table for Sarah Palin's first TV interview as a vice presidential candidate, which ABC is hoping it can air in part on Thursday.

Gibson will travel to Alaska and will probably speak to Palin at least twice. The challenge for ABC will be making excerpts available in time for "World News" Thursday, which Gibson must broadcast live from that state at 2:30 p.m. local time, said Jon Banner, the broadcast's executive producer.

Gibson was a no-show Monday at a news conference called by ABC to tout its effort to report election stories from all 50 states because executives said he was starting to prepare for the interview.

The ABC anchor interviewed GOP presidential candidate John McCain at the Republican convention last week. He said he thought hard about it, but decided not to ask questions then about Palin's family, including her 17-year-old pregnant daughter.

That doesn't necessarily mean the issue won't come up with Palin, Banner said.

"I don't think there is any doubt that this is a big interview for him and for us," he said.

Even though Palin's handlers chose Gibson over CBS' Katie Couric and "60 Minutes," there was some talk in news circles about whether MSNBC's opinionated programming was hurting NBC News' ability to book such an interview. MSNBC executives decided over the weekend to replace Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as anchors of their political coverage with David Gregory.

"All I know is I was delighted they chose us over someone else," said ABC News President David Westin.

Westin said he believed there were advantages for ABC in trying to play it straight with its coverage.

"There is still an audience that comes to us because they believe we're going to tell them the truth, as opposed to 'let's garner all the evidence we can for what position we like,'" he said.

He said NBC News faces a challenge in deciding how it works with MSNBC, or whether it tries to keep some degree of separation.

So, gosh. Because MSNBC won't play 'patty-cake' with Palin and McCain, they deserve to be tossed out with the trash...

I'm betting that ABC smooches so damn much Palin ass that they have rug burn from her butt pubes. Yeah... Someone better send them a case of something for that rash... Just think, being such a 'dink' and 'tool' used to be embarrassing, back before it meant millions of dollars in raw profit.

It's $22,000,000 in debt.

She's been described as being 'George Bush with breasts'. That's way to kind...

Palin is a shrill bitch.

I know MANY republican women who are the same way. They are great at screeching at what they see wrong with others and yet they are so far from any semblance of normality.

She wasted her speech putting grill marks into the asses of Obama and tried to sell the idea that the world needs intellectuals and elitists like they need more terrorists.

She is a damaged person. She stands for nothing that I can find that would make me ever consider voting for McCain. Just the idea that some self-righteous and proudly ignorant person could be the leader of the country that I love makes me crazy.

I am one of those that almost lost it when Cheney/Bush were reelected. And in hind sight, all those feeling were very justified! With Bush's dad, I felt better because a solid democratic congress put the breaks on his agenda. Had there been a solid republican congress I'd think that we'd be farther into this morass than we currently are. Hard to believe...

Palin/McCain is a very clear disaster and I don't think playing it soft and dismissing others concerns for the future is the right way to go. If you don't see anything wrong with Palin/McCain, then I hope you can keep your job, home, money and car(s) through the disaster that will come if they are elected.

Palin/McCain WILL be the continuation of the Bushist junta's agenda. She is very much going to be a damaging and destructive force perhaps worse than Cheney. The people that are backing Palin/McCain are the same ones that backed Cheney/Bush.

I predict that McCain will either die in office or his Alzheimer's will get bad enough that he will be just the figure head of the government and Palin and the GOP machine will be running things and America will lurch to the right like Iran post Shah. Dismiss Palin and those pushing her and you green light the worst of the Bushist junta's work.