Tough Interview or GOP Hit Job?

Last Thursday, WFTV-Channel 9 (Orlando, FL) news anchor Barbara West conducted a brief interview with Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden.

During that interview Ms. West asked Biden a series of pointed questions about Barack Obama's ties to ACORN, Marxist tenets, and Biden's own recent comments during a fundraiser about the likelihood of a "generated" international crisis purposely designed to test the resolve of a would-be President Barack Obama.

A clearly flabbergasted Biden asked Ms. West "Are you joking? Is this a real question?" after she compared Obama's remark about spreading the wealth during his conversation with Samuel 'Joe-the-Plumber' Wurzelbacher to the philosophy of Karl Marx.

At the conclusion of the interview the Obama-Biden campaign cancelled the station's previously scheduled interview with Biden's wife, Jill.

Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida Communications Director for the Obama campaign, wrote a letter to WFTV stating that their access to the campaign would be denied for its duration.

In response, WFTV news director Bob Jordan said, "Mr. Biden didn't like the questions. We choose not to ask softball questions."

In a Friday evening telephone interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Ms. West said, "I have a great deal of respect for him [Biden]. I have a great deal of respect for Sen. Obama. We are given four minutes of a satellite window for these interviews. Four precious minutes. I got right down to it and, yes, I think I asked him some pointed questions. These are questions that are rolling about right now and questions that need to be asked. I don't think I was rude or inconsiderate to him. I think I was probing and maybe tough."

If you had seen only the Biden interview, then you would probably be inclined to take the arguments of both Ms. West and Mr. Jordan at face value.

However, if you were to juxtapose that interview with this previous interview Ms. West conducted with Republican presidential candidate John McCain, you might feel differently about the objectivity of the Biden interview.

Do you notice how most of the questions that she poses to McCain concern Obama's campaign, and not his own?

I don't quite agree with the Obama campaign's decision to excommunicate WFTV. The sanction should be limited to Ms. West, if no one else.

In any case, it's worth noting that Ms. West's husband is Wade West; a Republican media consultant.

Just the facts.