The media on (and the machine behind) the Palin interviews

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hold a rally at Van Dyke Park in Fairfax, Va. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008. Cindy McCain is seen at left. (Greg Nash, WDCpix.com)

Local media watchdog site Cursor.org offers a series of links on the machine behind this week’s interviews with ABC’s Charlie Gibson. The New York Times looks at the “squad of GOP aides” assigned to Palin interview duty, noting everything from a “partywide, all-hands-on-deck” alert about responding to attacks on her record to the “several veterans” of the Bush campaign who are fighting internet rumors about Palin.

And ABC is rolling out the interview, well, everywhere: Excerpts are being released in dribs and drabs on “World News,” “Good Morning America,” and “Nightline,” with the bulk of it coming out during tonight’s special edition of “20/20,” dubbed “The Interview: Sarah Palin with Charles Gibson.”

An ABC press release adds that, “Additional portions of the interviews will air across ABC News’ platforms, including ABC News Radio, ABC News NOW, ABCNEWS.com and ABC NewsOne, beginning Thursday.”

The rationale, of course, is this: Palin is ratings gold. Her RNC speech was watched by some 40 million viewers, according to Nielsen, and a Fox News documentary, “Governor Palin: An American Woman” a week ago was the highest-rated prime-time documentary in Fox’s history, with 2.7 million viewers.

Reviews of Palin’s performance are mixed to negative, with the biggest criticisms being her seeming confusion about what the “Bush Doctrine” of pre-emptive force is (Slate’s Jack Schafer says Gibson “flummoxe[d] the GOP amateur“) and her statement that an attack on Russia might be necessary. (She also caught heat yesterday for linking the 9/11 attacks and Iraq, a connection even George W. Bush has finally stopped making.)

The New York times called the exchange a “strained and illuminating conversation,” while stating that interviewer Gibson was “hardly gentle.” The “Bush doctrine” exchange suggests as much:

Ms. Palin was clearly caught off guard when Mr. Gibson asked, “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” Seeking direction, and perhaps time to formulate an answer, Ms. Palin leaned back, smiled stiffly and said, “In what respect, Charlie?”

Initially unwilling to define the doctrine, Mr. Gibson said, “What do you interpret it to be?”

Ms. Palin asked, “His world view?”

Mr. Gibson said, “No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.”

Ms. Palin responded: “I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation.”

Mr. Gibson, finally defining the doctrine as “the right of anticipatory self-defense,” still struggled for a direct answer, asking twice more if she agreed with it before Ms. Palin answered: “Charlie, if there is a legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country.”