Gwen Ifill's Obama Debate Problem

It's not often Michelle Malkin has anything worthwhile to add to discussion, but she makes a valid point about Thursday's vice-presidential debate: As moderator, PBS's Gwen Ifill comes in bearing a pretty substantial conflict of interest. Ifill is the author of an upcoming book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

Malkin skims the publisher's description and concludes the book is a pure puff job. I don't think that conclusion's warranted -- marketing copy is gushy by nature -- but there's no doubt that Ifill stands to earn a lot more in royalties if Barack Obama wins than if John McCain triumphs. That's all but guaranteed by the book's cutesy timing: It comes out on Inauguration Day.

Ifill's reputation for integrity is such that most people familiar with her work would be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But a disclosure to viewers at the start of the debate is in order.

Update, 2:59 p.m.: CJR's blog The Kicker asks: "[W]hy is this becoming a "thing" now, when Ifill's book was reported on well before Ifill was selected as the moderator, and the McCain campaign might have raised this earlier if it bothered them?"

Why indeed -- unless the McCain camp's interest is not so much in getting a new moderator as in preemptively de-legitimizing the debate on the assumption that Palin will get the worst of it.

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