Posted by
Always To The Right on Saturday, August 30, 2008 6:15:10 PM
On ABC’s Good Morning America on Saturday, co-anchor Bill Weir bristled with hostility during an interview with a McCain campaign spokesman about the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate, suggesting she was unqualified and too conservative. At one point, Weir even suggested that by running for Vice President, the Governor would be jeopardizing her four-month old daughter, who has Down’s Syndrome.
Weir confronted McCain political director Mike DuHaime: “Adding to the
brutality of a national campaign, the Palin family also has an infant
with special needs. What leads you, the Senator, and the Governor to
believe that one won't affect the other in the next couple of months?”
When DuHaime offered a general answer about Palin’s “incredible life
story,” an obviously irritated Weir jumped in, exclaiming “She has an
infant -- she has an infant with special needs. Will that affect her
campaigning?”
Just a few moments later, that line of questioning
was quickly criticized by ABC’s Cokie Roberts as sexist. Without
mentioning Weir, Roberts said questions “about who’s taking care of the
children...traditionally has very much angered women voters when women
candidates are asked those questions and male candidates never are.”
Earlier, reporter David Wright sarcastically noted that McCain and
Palin campaigning “looked a little like father and daughter out for an
ice cream.” Wright, Weir and co-host Kate Snow all found ways to tag
Palin as conservative, with Snow calling her “quite conservative,” but
a week earlier, nobody on the same program thought it worth mentioning
that Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden was liberal.