Clinton On ABC’s “This Week”: Awkward For Stephanopoulos

It sounds as if this morning’s special Town Meeting format “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC could give ABC’s — and Stephanopoulos’ — critics ammunition to say he and his network gave Senator Hillary Clinton an hour of largely softball interview airtime.

Several reports suggest Stephanopoulos looked awkward, and that the ABC show was not akin to the grilling Clinton rival Senator Barack Obama got on NBC’s competing “Meet The Press” by Tim Russert. At least 10 minutes of Russert’s show was devoted to asking Obama to comment further on the politically-toxic controversy involving Obama’s former pastor (complete with questions about why he didn’t distance himself further sooner).

A look at this account of the ABC Show on CBS’s From The Road blog suggests that the Clinton appearance likely helped Clinton and undermined Stephanopoulos’ reputation as an independent journalist who is tough on both sides. A journalist doing his/her job persistently asks follow up questions until the interview subject gives a substantive answer:

Hillary Clinton appeared on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” this morning in an interview filled with awkward moments and strange interactions between the two former colleagues (Stephanopoulos worked under President Bill Clinton for 4 years.)

The interview was billed as a “town hall” where Indiana voters would get a chance to ask Clinton questions. Minutes into the interview, Clinton decided to ditch her chair, preferring to stand and address the audience. What ensued was an awkward interaction between Clinton and Stephanopoulos when the ABC host was forced to ask a few questions from his chair while Clinton loomed over him. (In fairness to Stephanopoulos, oftentimes in seated interview settings the journalist and/or the guest have their microphone cord taped to the chair, restricting one’s movement.)

Stephanopoulos tried to recover by standing alongside Clinton, but was forced to stand in a strange position as he remained tied to his chair.

On most NEWS shows the interviewer is supposed to set the rules about where guests sit and the format. And the interviewer/journalist is supposed to be the one in control of the setting.

After the first commercial break, the two were seated again, but within seconds Clinton decided she had had enough, forcing Stephanopoulos to stand, again.

But it reportedly got worse: Clinton reminded viewers that George S used to work for her and her husband. Just what Stephanopoulos and ABC need after being under fire from progressives who allege (with no proof) the debate in Philadelphia was set up to get tough with Obama and hurl softballs at Clinton (actually it seems to have turned out that way due to judgments involving news values and news story interest):

The interview took another unpleasant turn when Stephanopoulos tried to pin down Clinton over her position on NAFTA, a trade program introduced by her husband during his presidency. Clinton has come out against the plan saying it was not good for American workers. Stephanopoulos said, “The Clinton administration didn’t do enough to address the downside of globalization and therefore failed the workers in Indiana and the workers of the West?”

Clinton clearly took offense to the tone of the question and while answering, decided to take a jab at the host.

“Well I believe, George, in the 1990s we had a booming economy that created nearly 23 million new jobs, more people were lifted out of poverty in any time in our near history. It was an economy that worked for everyone, not just the rich, the wealthy and the well connected, but there were underlying issues that we didn’t understand fully. Now, you remember this, because George did work in that ‘92 campaign – George and I actually were against NAFTA – I’m talking about him in his previous life, before he was an objective journalist,” Clinton said to a visibly annoyed Stephanopoulos.

Some have speculated that Clinton prefers appearing on Stephanopoulos’ show because she can often turn a question around to include him as a former staffer for her husband.

The rest of the program involved questions on issues and questions from voters.

As noted in a previous post here, ABC would have been far better served if a DIFFERENT journalist had done the actual questioning of Clinton during this segment. It isn’t the same as a judge bowing out if he has a conflict of interest but Stephanopoulos and ABC would have come out a lot better with their reputations intact.

Russert finishes today still being perceived as Tim “GOTCHA!” Russert; Stephanopoulos finishes the day being perceived by some as a former Clinton employee still seemingly intimidated by his former boss.