A Journalist's "Self-Gelding"

Oh, that liberal media! Josh Marshall underscores an AP report and encourages us to consider how ABCNew's "coup" of an interview with the media-skittish Sarah Palin is simply the McCain campaign leading frail Charlie Gibson around by the nose:

Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the 'multiple interviews' because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won't happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it's pretty clear that that is what this will be.

Here's some more to inspire confidence ...

The interview is a coup for Gibson, who also had the only sit-down with McCain during the Republican National Convention. During that interview, he did not question McCain about Palin's family, a decision that he fretted about for hours, Gibson said in a Web log posted last week.

"Once you know about her daughter's pregnancy, once you know about her husband's political interest in the Alaska Independent Party, once you know about the special nature of their latest child, I think that's enough," Gibson wrote.

Palin will bridle and saddle Gibson and have him at a brisk three-beat gait in no time.


BONUS: MSNBC becomes McCain's broodmare. Are there any rogue journalists left?