Dissecting the Palin Interview

NYT: September 12, 2008
Dissecting the Palin Interview
By Michael Falcone

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s first major media interview since becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee is keeping her supporters and opponents alike glued to their televisions. The first and second installments of her conversation with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson were broadcast on Thursday with more to come today, including a two-hour special Friday night on “20/20” at 10 p.m. Eastern.

The Times’s Jim Rutenberg notes that Ms. Palin’s most confident answer was perhaps when she said that she did not hesitate when Senator John McCain invited her to be his running mate....

Our Alessandra Stanley notes that Ms. Palin stuck mostly to her talking points in her first round with Mr. Gibson, but even so, looked uncomfortable at times: “At times, her eyes looked uncertain and her voice hesitated, and she looked like a student trying to bend prepared answers to fit unexpected questions.” And as for her interviewer: “Mr. 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 Los Angeles Times notes the “hard line” she took on Russia and Iran as she fielded questions on a variety of foreign policy issues. The Politico’s Jonathan Martin writes that she “sounded hawkish” on defense and national security matters and “defended her minimal foreign policy background by citing a strong familiarity with energy issues so key to her home state.”

In the second interview that was broadcast late last night and early this morning, Ms. Palin — pressed several times — seemed to concede that global warming, or at least some of it, could be attributed to manmade pollution....

The Chicago Sun Times’s Lynn Sweet judged that Gov. Palin passed her test, presenting herself as “steely and supremely confident” even though she stumbled at times. Ms. Sweet noted that she “kept herself out of major trouble, and that was her most important goal, first do no harm.”...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/the-early-word-dissecting-the-palin-interview/

That's a pretty low benchmark for success.