Editing Sarah

P.J. Gladnick over at Newsbusters has an interesting look at the first Charlie Gibson interview by comparing the full transcript, available here, and how it was edited for television. Several times it seems that they edited out remarks that she made that made her seem much less of a warmonger than their original hype for the interview.

The McCain campaign should have insisted on either an unedited interview or have had their own cameras there so they could have posted the full interview up for people to compare. This is part of the problem of having her be interviewed for a TV show like the nightly news or 20/20 where ABC was going to have to edit the interview to fit it in the time slot. They wouldn't have faced that problem with an interview on something like Meet the Press. They should demonstrate their confidence in her by putting her out on the Sunday talk show circuit. After she's had a bunch of interviews, the novelty will wear off and everyone can move on to their next anti-Sarah talking point. And it would give her the practice she needs before the debate with Biden.

Glenn Reynolds has a column in the New York Post today recommending that politicians tape their own interviews.