Showing a Confidence, in Prepared Answers
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: September 11, 2008
“I got lost in a blizzard of words there,” Charles Gibson of ABC News said to Gov. Sarah Palin, with a trace of irritation in his voice. “Is that a yes?”
Ms. Palin didn’t look rattled or lose her cool in her first interview with Mr. Gibson, the network anchor, on Thursday night, but she skittered through with general answers, sticking to talking points that flowed out quickly and spiritedly, a little too much by rote to satisfy her interviewer that she was giving his questions serious consideration. When Ms. Palin seemed not to know exactly what the Bush doctrine is, Mr. Gibson made a point of explaining it — pre-emptive self-defense — and demanded that she tell him whether she agreed with it.
ABC News delivered the first glimpse of Ms. Palin without a script or a cheering audience, and it was a strained and illuminating conversation. Ms. Palin, who kept inserting Mr. Gibson’s nickname, Charlie, into her answers, as if to convey an old hand’s conviviality, tried to project self-confidence, poise and even expertise: She let Mr. Gibson know that she had personally reassured the Georgian president and correctly pronounced his last name, Saakashvili. At times, her eyes looked uncertain and her voice hesitated, and she looked like a student trying to bend prepared answers to fit unexpected questions.
Mr. Gibson, who sat back in his chair, impatiently wriggling his foot, had the skeptical, annoyed tone of a university president who agrees to interview the daughter of a trustee but doesn’t believe she merits admission.
When he asked her, slowly and solemnly to “look the country in the eye” and say whether she truly felt qualified to be vice president and possibly commander in chief, Mr. Gibson seemed to expect Ms. Palin to express at least a moment of humility and self-doubt. Ms. Palin said she had no doubts when asked to be Senator John McCain’s running mate. (“I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink. You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink.”) Mr. Gibson suggested that her brash, unwavering confidence sounded like “hubris.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/us/politics/12watch.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1221217357-1ZYeLgePLoH5EGiQqQnwhg
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