VP Debate Moderator Gwen Ifill - Who She Is, Why Some Are Already Criticizing Her

It's not enough that Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are going head-to-head tonight. Now the moderator of the vice presidential debate is under attack. I haven't seen so many fireworks since the Fourth of July. The hyped-up drama surrounding tonight's oratorical showdown reminds me of those nighttime soap operas from the 1980s - Dynasty, Dallas, and Knots Landing. (At least the shoulder pads and big hair are out.)

This is not Donna Mills moderating, it's Gwen Ifill of PBS, a respected journalist who is moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and the senior correspondent for NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The late Tim Russert said of her, "She's a wonderful, classy lady and a great journalist." TIME has an excellent bio.

Why is Ifill caught up in the infighting? She's due to publish a book The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama that comes out on Inauguration Day. Critics argue that Ifill won't be impartial; she'll be rooting for an Obama victory to help sell the book.

Commentary across the internet may help you to decide if that claim is true:

• From the Boston Herald: "'It’s probably not the greatest thing on Earth that she is in that role and it’s probably going to really force her to be fully even-handed,' Thomas Patterson, professor of government and the press at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, told the Herald yesterday. 'If anything, she’s got to be really careful with her questioning of Sarah Palin.'"
• From CNN.com: "The McCain campaign said it had not...been aware of her book, until Tuesday. McCain told CNN's Juan Carlos Lopez that the situation concerned him but that he was sure Ifill would be professional."
• From TheAtlantic.com blog of Mark Ambinder: "It's a little bit depressing. And predictable. Smearing a journalist for the sake of smearing a journalist. Guilt-by-racial association. Gwen Ifill seems to be writing a legit book... its title reflects an undeniable truth: Obama heralds -- and represents -- the new black political power structure. Covering this as a 'Republicans worry that' versus 'media defends' story isn't intellectually honest. Republicans aren't actually worrying. They're pretending to worry in order to divert attention from the content of tomorrow night's debate....And it's kind of insulting to Gov. Palin... as if she's going to crumple in the face of a moderator who might not be sympathetic. I've been watching previous debates. Palin can handle a tough moderator."
• From the newsblogs at the Chicago Tribune: "Ifill’s detractors say that the book is pro-Obama and that the author of such a tome couldn’t possibly sit as an impartial moderator. They’ve got to be kidding. I’ve not read the book----I’m certain Ifill’s detractors have not read it----so what exactly can one glean from the publisher’s description that allows one to believe she can’t do her job? I think conservatives are nervous about Palin’s upcoming performance and are running scared....I think this is more about Ifill being black and the wrong-headed assertion that when it comes to Obama, black journalists can’t see him objectively. Ifill is also a woman. I wonder: If she’d written a book about the Suffrage movement would detractors call her on that as well?"
• From FOXNews.com, a quote from Sarah Palin: "I am not going to let it be a concern. Let me just tell you that John McCain has been in an underdog position before. And this ticket, I think, we can safely say is in an underdog position. But that just makes us work harder. It makes us want to communicate clearer and more profoundly with the electorate, letting them know what the contrasts are between these two tickets. It is motivating to me to me, eve, to hear Gwen's comments there, because, again, that will make us work that much harder and that provides even more fairness and objectivity and choices for the voters on November 4 if we try that much harder."

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