Having watched several clips of Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin, I have to say I agree with Jay Nordlinger's take on Gibson's body language:

In his loud sighings and overall body language, he reminded me quite a lot of Al Gore, in the first 2000 debate.

Remember that debate? Governor Bush did poorly, but Gore's behavior was so boorish, people tended to focus on that (and a Saturday Night Live parody absolutely slew Gore).

Palin did much better than that (and Bush rose to the occasion -- more than rose -- in the second and third debates). (Same thing happened in '04, oddly enough.) And she'll get nothing but better, I predict.

P.S. Gibson's behavior was so "out there" -- drawing attention to itself -- I think Palin should have remarked on it, in the course of her answers. What do I mean by "out there"? Well, I mean intrusive, in a way. Blatant.

Often, a good interviewer is seamless in his performance -- he almost absents himself from the proceedings, so that the questions and answers take over. But it was like Gibson was the co-star -- if not the lead star -- of the whole show.

He was as much adversary -- debate opponent -- as questioner. And that's not my idea of how these shebangs should go. (Whether the interviewee is an R or a D.)

As Jay wrote in an earlier post:

Remember this about Gibson, too: A lot of pressure was on him. Why? Because he had the first interview, with this much-hated figure. He was standing in for the whole MSM -- and they were depending on him. He just had to be somewhat hostile, he had to trip her up, if only a little. Otherwise, his colleagues would have said he had blown his opportunity -- their opportunity -- and gone all soft.

In the eyes of the arrogant MSM, he was "vetting" for all.

So -- walk a yard or two in his moccasins . . .

Moccasins? At the risk of venturing into the Manolo's territory, those looked like extra clunky double-soled Florsheim battleship-grade wingtips Gibson was tapping whenever he was bored with Palin, the perfect metaphor for a dinosaur media in general.

Beyond Gibson's effete condescension, the 65,327 jump cuts in the video were obvious and glaring. And in these days of unlimited bandwidth, there's no excuse for that. I can certainly understand cutting a lengthy interview down to fit in with the rest of the material on the half hour nightly news. (Itself a relic from the Jurassic era of Eisenhower and Arthur Godfrey.) But then put the whole thing online with a few or no edits.

And in addition to ABC's edits, Gibson relied on a truncated AP quote to attack the Alaskan governor on her prayers for America's troops. And then to compound the problem, ABC puts the word 'God' in unnecessary scare quotes on the video page highlighting the exchange. Stay classy, ABC!

Update: Neo-Neocon also has some thoughts on, as she calls Gibson, "the Not-So-Grand Inquisitor":

I was constantly distracted by two things: the shockingly choppy editing, and Gibson's profoundly inquisitorial demeanor.

It wasn't just his game face, and the peering over the eyeglasses (he gave new meaning to the expression "looked down his nose at her"). It was his remarkable condescension: "I got lost in a blizzard of words..." That crack sounded more like one side of a couple's quarrel overheard in a restaurant than the statement of a neutral interviewer.

It didn't help that it was preceded by yet another clunky jump cut, leaving the viewer not knowing where "the blizzard of words" was naturally concluded by Palin or--more likely it seems--truncated by an editor at ABC.

(As always, these two items remain my favorite Gibsons.)