Is the L.A. Times trying to get some subscribers back?
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."
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."
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.
When Palin asked Gibson what he meant by the Bush Doctrine, Gibson clarified: "The Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war."
Then, when Palin apparently needed further clarification, he said, "The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?"
Palin's replied: "If there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend."....
