ABC News, "Ethics? What is this thing you speak of?"

With all my computer work, I missed out on Sarah Palin's first big interview...Which looks like a good thing because according to NewsBusters, ABC news did a whole lot of creative editing in order to manipulate her responses.

It's pretty obvious from their edits they were trying to make her appear more hard-line and "Bush-like" than she actually was. Look at the below example (bold text deleted from aired interview):

GIBSON: Let me turn to Iran. Do you consider a nuclear Iran to be an existential threat to Israel?

PALIN: I believe that under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, nuclear weapons in the hands of his government are extremely dangerous to everyone on this globe, yes.

GIBSON: So what should we do about a nuclear Iran? John McCain said the only thing worse than a war with Iran would be a nuclear Iran. John Abizaid said we may have to live with a nuclear Iran. Who’s right?

PALIN: No, no. I agree with John McCain that nuclear weapons in the hands of those who would seek to destroy our allies, in this case, we’re talking about Israel, we’re talking about Ahmadinejad’s comment about Israel being the “stinking corpse, should be wiped off the face of the earth,” that’s atrocious. That’s unacceptable.

GIBSON: So what do you do about a nuclear Iran?

PALIN: We have got to make sure that these weapons of mass destruction, that nuclear weapons are not given to those hands of Ahmadinejad, not that he would use them, but that he would allow terrorists to be able to use them. So we have got to put the pressure on Iran and we have got to count on our allies to help us, diplomatic pressure.

GIBSON: But, Governor, we’ve threatened greater sanctions against Iran for a long time. It hasn’t done any good. It hasn’t stemmed their nuclear program.

PALIN: We need to pursue those and we need to implement those. We cannot back off. We cannot just concede that, oh, gee, maybe they’re going to have nuclear weapons, what can we do about it. No way, not Americans. We do not have to stand for that.

In the aired portion she sounds like she plans to attack Iran first thing. In the actual interview, there's a great deal more discussion of various options to handle Iran. But apparently, that was a little too knowledgeable of a response for ABC so the "corrected" it to show a response from Palin more in keeping with ABC News world-view. Because when airing a political interview which will inform millions of Americans, preserving your own prejudices is soooo much more critical than accurate reporting.

The above is hardly the only example from the interview. There's plenty more here also.

Thank you ABC News & Charlie Gibson for 100% validating my decision to not watch any network news EVER.