In one of the better back-and-forths we have had in a comment thread to our various posts, my Williams classmate Phil Holmes considers Katie Couric’s bias, then makes an interesting point:
. . . if Biden and Palin were both to be interviewed on Fox News, I think you’d see the same difference in treatment (i.e., Fox would gun for Biden much more than they would gun for Palin)
Now, I don’t know how familiar Phil is with FoxNews as it features a variety of anchors, reporters and commentators — who have a great variety of opinions; they are not interchangeable one with the other. Bill O’Reilly has posed tought questions to Republicans and Democrats alike as have Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Brit Hume.
Sean Hannity, however, is a different story. During the 2008 campaign, I watched his interview with John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin and saw him toss softball after softball at the accomplished then-Alaska Governor. He showed her almost exactly the same deference Couric showed to Barack Obama’s running mate, the gaffe-prone then-Delaware Senator.
The difference? Sean Hannity does not put himself forward as an impartial purveyor of news. Katie Couric does.
Hannity even wrote a book making clear his agenda: Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda.