As much as I hated to see the presidential campaign end last week, there was one happy thought: At least my TV screen would no longer be filled with images of Sarah Palin.
What a fool I was. She is everywhere on TV this week -- from Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, to Matt Lauer on NBC's Today. Sadly, there is even more to come tonight on CNN with Larry King.
And unlike her disastrous interviews with a couple of real journalists in CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric and ABC anchorman Charles Gibson, Palin is running circles around the people she is talking to this week, being allowed to lie left and right while portraying herself as a modest handmaiden of the Almighty willing to walk through any "door" he "opens" for her -- especially if it happens to be at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Lauer and Van Susteren both trekked up to Alaska to get the jump on the 10 million TV interviews she is doing this week. And of the two, Lauer is the biggest disappointment. I expected almost nothing from Van Susteren, who defines bottom feeding both in subject matter and approach to news on cable TV.
But Lauer was such a wimp -- almost as obsequious as the smarmy Sean Hannity in the bended-knees interview the Fox talk show host did with Palin during the election. One of Lauer's lowest moments came when he asked Palin if she felt that Couric had somehow been "unfair" in the questions she asked.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2008/11/palin_does_softball_circuit_wi.html