By Kelsey Sharpe

            On October 23, 2008, the NBC Nightly News aired the second part of an interview conducted by Brian Williams with Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Among the topics discussed were Barack Obama’s association with Bill Ayres (co-founder of the radical, anti-Vietnam War group Weather Underground) and whether new definitions of terrorism could be expanded to include rioters from the 1960s as well as abortion clinic bombers.

            Ultimately, the problem with this interview is that Brian Williams asked a pointed, direct question that clearly focused on an issue important to women voters and feminists, but he failed to follow up on it in any meaningful way. His first question centers on a possible new definition for domestic terrorism. Addressing Palin, Williams says, “back to the issue of terrorists and terrorism, this word has come up in relation to Mr. Ayres … are we changing the definition? ... is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist?”. Rather than responding to the posed question, Palin gives a roundabout answer that focuses mostly on Bill Ayres. She mentions briefly that while she does think that “harming innocent Americans or facilities” is unacceptable, it is not something that she would call terrorism. While Williams does make an attempt to rephrase the question, Palin gives a nearly identical response. Unfortunately this prompts Williams to move on to an entirely new topic, though not until McCain has finished a canned spiel on Ayres.

          Abortion clinic violence has been a serious issue, and although Sarah Palin clearly has not supported anti-abortion violence, any woman considering to vote for Palin should be interested to know her exact opinion on this topic. While she obviously does not approve of such violent actions, one wonders if the bandying about of terms like “domestic terrorist” with regard to Ayres is not simply a political tactic to take advantage of post-9/11 paranoia. If the Weather Underground’s activities in the 1970s can be considered terrorism, then why not bombings, burnings and attacks on abortion clinics that have occurred this millennium? Perhaps the interview was edited due to concerns about air-time, but the failure to follow up on Palin’s non-answer is indicative of the oversensitive media approach to the Vice Presidential nominee. This feminist does not believe that it is sexist to question a woman about her stances on a particular issue—asking Sarah Palin, a self-described “hardcore pro-lifer”, a question about anti-abortion clinic violence is not bullying, it is responsible journalism.

Link to video of interview: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/27328627#27347418