Gwen Ifill: Conservatives used me to change the subject David Edwards and Andrew McLemore

Published: Sunday October 5, 2008





Print This Email This Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had announced during Thursday's debate that she "may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear."



In other words, she "blew me off I think is the technical term," moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS said Sunday.



Palin avoided answering questions 10 times by being non-specific or simply pivoting away to another issue, Politico reported.



Ifill explained to NBC's Tom Brokaw how the event had been presented beforehand compared to what actually happened on stage.



She said that if the candidates decide they are not going to debate one another, "there is very little a moderator can do other than say, 'No, no, no, listen, please answer the question."



Ifill also related the difficulty of having been thrust into the media spotlight when prior to the debate, conservatives called for Ifill to be replaced as the debate moderator because she is writing a book partially about Obama.



"What I discovered this week, in an uncomfortable way, is that when they throw everything in the mix to change the subject that you can get in the way. I got in the way of it this week. It was an interesting -- I kind of didn't pay attention to a lot of it -- but it was interesting to realize that if changing the subject from the stakes of vice president meant talking about the moderator instead of talking about the candidate, they would do that. If that meant raising questions about anything else that's out there -- which is why if you leard one thing about this campaign is every week it will be something else."



This video is from NBC's Meet the Press, broadcast October 5, 2008.









Download video via RawReplay.com









