OPRAH WINFREY - CRITICS SAY PALIN DODGED GIBSON'S QUESTIONS

CRITICS SAY PALIN DODGED GIBSON'S QUESTIONS

Sarah Palin's interview with ABC's Charles Gibson did not receive the same kind of praise from critics that her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention did two weeks ago. Palin, critics said, seemed determined to respond to Gibson's questions with her own prepared remarks, avoiding direct responses to his questions. "I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes?" Gibson asked her at one point. In the New York Times , Alessandra Stanley wrote, "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." David Hinckley in the New York Daily News wrote that Palin "was composed and forceful even when she was clearly scrambling to bring a question back into her message zone." Meanwhile, a group called the Political Fish has set up a website, www.palinpetition.com, where Republicans are asked to sign a petition urging Oprah Winfrey to interview Palin before the election. Winfrey, who has announced her support for Barrack Obama, has said that she has decided "not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates." Meanwhile, the website TMZ claimed that Barbara Walters "lost" the Palin interview to Gibson. Collared by a TMZ cameraman in New York and asked to comment on Gibson's "get," Walters said, "That's wonderful" but refused further comment.

12/09/2008