November 11, 2008

Matt Lauer's Palin Interview

Allah has it posted, if you haven't seen it.

I think Gov. Palin comes off well.

Lauer brings up a series of the recent "insider" smears against Gov. Palin and gives her an opportunity to respond to each.

Palin responds with unequivocal denials, and fact-based statements that would be fairly easy to either CONFIRM or DEBUNK, as appropriate. In my years watching politicians answer questions, liars asked tough questions generally don't volunteer additional details. Liars generally try to keep their answers as vague as possible, in order to retain the maximum wiggle room. In her interview with Matt Lauer, Sarah Palin doubles down.

I really don't know whether Sarah Palin is lying about these latest allegations, but so far, she's been forced to address a whole boatload of smears during this campaign, and NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM has panned out. During this campaign, I've seen Sarah Palin on the receiving end of one wild allegation after another, all of which have turned out to be lies. Now there's a new raft of allegations. Based on what I've seen previously, I'm betting that Palin's telling the truth, and that her anonymous detractors are lying--or at least spreading gossip without any particular regard to its credibility.

The lesson we perhaps should have learned from the earlier rounds of Palin smears is that reporters are not particularly good "filters" of information. Often, they're merely passive conduits for gossip delivered by anonymous sources who have their axes to grind, with or without the complicity of the media folks. Whether Carl Cameron is a naive dupe or a knowing co-conspirator, I really don't know, but the facts would seem to compel one conclusion or the other.

Although I've always had this idea that reporters (or at least their editors) double-check and verify the facts before going to press or on the air, we're learning more and more that they apparently don't do any such thing. Thus, there wouldn't appear to be any particular reason to believe that a sensational "inside scoop" showing up on television or in the paper has any particular credibility.

Although I've never been one to believe everything I see on television, I used to believe that there was, more often than not, at least a grain of truth to this or that piece of sensational gossip that showed up in the news, because a bare hearsay assertion just wouldn't make it through the "noise filter." I'm re-thinking that background presumption. I think I'm coming to the realization that a lot of these sensational "inside scoop" stories are about as likely to be completely false as even partly true.

Your thoughts?