The Independent View

Did you know that Gwen Ifill, who is cur­rently slated to mod­er­ate Thursday’s vice-​presidential debate, has writ­ten a pro-​Obama book that is to be pub­lished on Jan­u­ary 20, 2009? Yes, Inau­gu­ra­tion Day!

In THE BREAKTHROUGH, vet­eran jour­nal­ist Gwen Ifill sur­veys the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal land­scape, shed­ding new light on the impact of Barack Obama’s stun­ning pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and intro­duc­ing the emerg­ing young African Amer­i­can politi­cians forg­ing a bold new path to polit­i­cal power.

Ifill argues that the Black polit­i­cal struc­ture formed dur­ing the Civil Rights move­ment is giv­ing way to a gen­er­a­tion of men and women who are the direct ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the strug­gles of the 1960s. She offers inci­sive, detailed pro­files of such promi­nent lead­ers as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Con­gress­man Artur Davis of Alabama, and also cov­ers up-​and-​coming fig­ures from across the nation. Draw­ing on inter­views with power bro­kers like Sen­a­tor Obama, for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Colin Pow­ell, Ver­non Jor­dan, the Rev­erend Jesse Jack­son, and many oth­ers, as well as her own razor-​sharp obser­va­tions and analy­sis of such issues as gen­er­a­tional con­flict and the “black enough” conun­drum, Ifill shows why this is a piv­otal moment in Amer­i­can history.

THE BREAKTHROUGH is a remark­able look at con­tem­po­rary pol­i­tics and an essen­tial foun­da­tion for under­stand­ing the future of Amer­i­can democ­racy.–Edi­to­r­ial Review on Ama­zon and as adver­tised by pub­lisher Ran­dom House.

How in the world did Gwen Ifill get picked to mod­er­ate Thursday’s vice-​presidential debate?! It is sim­ply out­ra­geous that she, now hawk­ing her upcom­ing pro-​Obama, is to mod­er­ate the debate between his VP part­ner and Gov­er­nor Palin. This is a mock­ery of fairness. 

I won­der if the debate com­mis­sion and both par­ties knew Ifill was writ­ing an ador­ing book about Obama? Did she dis­close this? And when? Will Gwen Ifill offer a dis­claimer about this Thurs­day at the start of the debate?

Why would any­one think Gwen Ifill can be unbi­ased in ques­tion­ing the two VP can­di­dates as she has a clear per­sonal, pro­fes­sional, and finan­cial stake in see­ing that Biden does well and that Obama wins in November?

As Michelle Malkin observes:

Ifill and her pub­lisher are bank­ing on an Obama/​Biden win to buoy her book sales. The mod­er­a­tor expected to treat both sides fairly has grandiosely declared this the “Age of Obama.” Can you imag­ine a right-​leaning jour­nal­ist writ­ing a book about the “stun­ning” McCain cam­paign and its “bold” path to reform timed for release on Inau­gu­ra­tion Day – and then expect­ing a slot as a mod­er­a­tor for the nation’s sole vice pres­i­den­tial debate?—Michelle Malkin

Malkin points out Ifill’s clear bias over the past sev­eral months:

Despite the protes­ta­tions of her col­leagues that she will be fair, Ifill has appeared on numer­ous radio and TV talk shows over the past sev­eral months to cash in on her access to the Obama cam­paign. She recently penned a fawn­ing cover story on the Oba­mas for Essence mag­a­zine that earned much buzz. The title? “The Oba­mas: Por­trait of an Amer­i­can Family.”

Gwen Ifill wrote in Time on August 21, 2008:

The Obama gen­er­a­tion is just begin­ning its run.

Ques­tioned recently about her biases, Ifill is quoted by the Wash­ing­ton Post say­ing, “no one’s ever assumed a white reporter can’t cover a white can­di­date.” But what about a “reporter” who has a per­sonal, pro­fes­sional, and finan­cial stake?!

I found only a cou­ple early men­tions of Ifill’s book. In fact, it is a bit sur­pris­ing that her upcom­ing book was noted in the Sep­tem­ber 3rd Wash­ing­ton Post arti­cle, yet no fur­ther ques­tion or con­nec­tion was given between this and her planned mod­er­a­tion of the Octo­ber 2nd debate. Ifill disin­ge­niously observed when asked about the debate, that “I’m not run­ning for any­thing.” Yet, she is sell­ing a book! The Wash­ing­ton Post barely men­tions her book, as a foot­note: “Ifill is work­ing on a book called “Break­through: Pol­i­tics and Race in the Age of Obama.” She focuses on the Demo­c­ra­tic nominee…”

And regard­ing Gov­er­nor Palin, Ifill was accused by many of show­ing bias against the gov­er­nor dur­ing the Repub­li­can Con­ven­tion. PBS ombus­d­man Michael Getler defended Ifill against these com­plaints but did share with­out com­ment or dis­pute a selec­tion of the complaints.

Addi­tion­ally, it should also come as no sur­prise that Gwen Ifill is appar­ently friend and col­league of fel­low Obama-​supporter Oprah. Indeed, Ifill has a long his­tory with Oprah, includ­ing writ­ing in O, The Oprah Mag­a­zine.

And check­ing the head­lines, even though Ifill appar­ently made no secret of her upcom­ing book, noneof the recent arti­cles on the debate dis­close Ifill’s clear con­flict of inter­est in writ­ing a pro-​Obama book that will con­ve­niently pub­lish Inau­gu­ra­tion Day. To be hon­est, there are few orig­i­nal arti­cles on Ifill and the upcom­ing debate, though I sus­pect this will now change as Ifill’s con­flict of inter­est becomes more widely known.

• David Bauder, for AP, Ifill is ready for her spot­light as vice pres­i­den­tial debate mod­er­a­tor, Kansas CIty Star, Octo­ber 1, 2008.
• David Bauder, for AP, Ifil hits jack­pot in mod­er­at­ing VP debate, Salon, Sep­tem­ber 21, 2008.
• Carl Hiassen, Ifill bet­ter be nice to poor Palin dur­ing debate, Miami Her­ald, Sep­tem­ber 29, 2008
• Don Fred­er­ick, Gwen Ifill to play hurt in Thursday’s VP debate, Los Ange­les Times, Sep­tem­ber 30, 2008.
• Robert G. Kaiser, For­mat of Biden-​Palin Debate Sets No Limit on Sub­ject Mat­ter, Wash­ing­ton Post, Sep­tem­ber 21, 2008.

How­ever late the date, Gwen Ifill’s unmis­take­able con­flict of inter­est should dis­qual­ify her from mod­er­at­ing the vice-​presidential debate. It is to the dis­credit of the Com­mis­sion for Pres­i­den­tial Debates that, despite her con­flict of inter­est and rather clear sup­port of Obama, Ifill was cho­sen to mod­er­ate the debate. It is also dis­ap­point­ing to see that the MSM is either ignor­ing the con­flict of inter­est or not inquis­i­tive enough to put two-​and-​two together when the infor­ma­tion is right in front of them.

Action Item for Every­one: Call the Com­mis­sion on Pres­i­den­tial Debates at (202) 872‑1020 to demand full dis­clo­sure of Ifill’s bias and demand she be replaced as mod­er­a­tor of the debate. No email addresses found for the Com­mis­sion or its lead­er­ship: Janet H. Brown, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor; Frank Fahrenkopf, Co-​Chairman; Paul Kirk, Co-​Chairman.

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