Ifill Glower

by digby

If you missed Gwen Ifill interviewing Gore about his book last night, you missed the latest in a series of obtuse, eye-rolling interviews by the high school cheerleading squad that calls itself the news media. Ifill was practically chewing gum and popping bubbles in Gore’s face as she asks him about his, like, totally boring book.

The transcript doesn’t do it justice, but here’s how she started:

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Vice President, welcome.

AL GORE, former vice president of the United States: Thank you.

GWEN IFILL: The book reads as a screed. It’s an attack on media, on politics, and mostly against George W. Bush. Is that what you intended?

I have not finished the book, but I can tell you already that a screed it is not. Among the beltway wags, however, it is taken as a matter of faith that anything Al Gore says is both boring and slightly crazed, which I suppose could be defined as a political screed to them.

The thing that really gripes me about Ifill is that she doesn’t have to be an eye-rolling, gum-popping cretin; she isn’t subject to ratings or political pressure from on high. (Not that that would be an excuse, but it does explain part of it at least.) And yet in appearances like these and her regular gig at Washington Week in Review she often takes that contemptuous “in crowd” tone anyway. Nobody else at her network adopts that derisive Dowdian attitude. She behaves like a kewl kid because she wants to.

Watching Gore have to endure all these interviews with people who are too stupid to grasp what he’s saying or are being willfully thick about it out of reflexive Gore loathing and social pressure, is an amazing sight to see considering the thesis of his book. With every one of these interviews, where they insist on the snotty “are you on a diet” and “are you running” idiocy, they prove his point. I can’t figure out if they know it and don’t care or if they really are as dumb as they look. Either way, it’s quite clear that these people won’t be stepping in to stop the assault on reason any time soon.

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