As the saying goes, “if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell clearly couldn’t stand the heat and she walked out of the kitchen — suggesting as she exited that it was a privilege for her to be in the kitchen and she was wanted elsewhere. The kitchen was CNN’s Piers Morgan Show where the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Senate was asked about her widely broadcast and often-in-print and in cybserspace views on gay marriage. So she walked out in the middle of the interview (suggesting this was somehow punishment for Morgan when it probably will help him gain viewers in the future).
When you watch this, note that her main complaint is that Morgan is not doing a p.r. interview — that when someone appears on a cable show THEY have the RIGHT to control the questions and if a question is not to their liking it is somehow wrong.
It’s clear that Ms. O’Donnell really wants an interview done by Sean Hannity: one where she controls the questions and the interviewer acts as a kind of defense attorney, asking leading questions to make her look good and negatively framed questions to allow her to go after those who dared to criticize her.
Ms. O’Donnell needs to stay out of the political kitchen — but i suspect voters will help her stay out in the future. And I will predict now: her book will not do well. This will not help sales. She NEEDED to get people who might not agree with her to buy her book as well. Why would anyone do that after watching this?
Good TV; bad sales move.
P.S. Somewhere Karl Rove is smliing.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.