Local Newslady Goes All Roy Cohn on Biden

No matter how in the tank (as this election season's second most overused linguistic trope, after "Main Street/Wall Street," would have it) much of the media may be for Barack Obama, it's worth remembering that some journalists are actually in the other guy's corner...shamelessly, rabidly, hilariously in his corner.

Just watch this interview Orlando newswoman Barbara West conducted with Joe Biden on Thursday, which resulted in the Democratic campaign canceling an interview Biden's wife had planned to give the station, WFTV. Drudge and other right-wing sites are spinning the incident as an Orwellian attack on free speech. Personally, I was impressed by Biden's good humor in the face of what was less a grilling than a desperate audition for a primetime job at Fox News.

Consider some of West's questions:

"Aren't you embarrassed by the blatant attempts to register phony voters by ACORN, an organization that Barack Obama has been tied to in the past?"

"Isn't Sen. Obama's comment [about spreading the wealth around] a potentially crushing political blunder?"

"How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

"Are you forewarning Americans that...America's days as a world's leading power are over?"

"What do you say to the people who are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden?"

(Watch the full clip below.)

WFTV's news director says West was being appropriately tough -- but her approach was nowhere near as aggressive when she interviewed John McCain last week. Here were some of her questions for him:

"Why haven't you gone after [Obama] on these serious issues of voter registration fraud and the mortgage crisis?"

"Do you feel that the Democrats are trying to paint you into a box -- in other words, make it impossible for you to criticize Sen. Obama?"

"Are you going to cut and run [in Florida] or fight harder?"

According to her official bio, West was "the principal assistant to Peter Jennings during his years as the anchor for ABC's World News Tonite [sic] in London," as well as a former Miss Vermont. Google doesn't turn up much about her politics, but her husband, Wade West, is a media trainer who has consulted for Republican political candidates and donated money to Republican campaigns.

Here's the full interview.

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