The Playbook
You may have heard part of this on the Mark Levin program last night, or if you watched any of Fox News coverage last night…in the aftermath of the interview between Bret Baier of Fox and Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris–but I thought it was worth noting.
Not what was or was not said during the interview, but the behind-the-scenes games. Sure, both parties do this to some degree…but this seemed to take it to another level.
I have met Mr. Baier in person and been interviewed by him on Fox a few times, and he’s been a guest with me on KXEL several times. I find him to be a genuine fellow and a very dedicated journalist.
His team wanted to do the interview live, but the Harris side insisted on recording it at 4 p.m. Iowa time…only an hour before the Baier program starts…meaning his team would have to scramble to have the tape ready for air when his program starts. And they had agreed on close to a half hour of interview time.
Instead, as the crew was assembled, they cut the time to only 20 minutes, then suggested 15. The time for starting the interview came and went. The crew noted that if they didn’t start by a quarter past the hour, they’d miss the start of the normal live show.
Harris walked in at 16 minutes past the hour…16 minutes late for the interview, and ensuring that it would be a shorter-than-promised interview.
Mr. Baier noted that such games are played often; to use the sports phrase, he said it was nothing more than “icing the kicker”–when a team takes a time out to make the other side’s field goal kicker think about the upcoming attempt a little more and get nervous.
But here’s the interesting part: Baier said a similar situation–time being cut, late entrance of the guest, etc.–happened in 2010 before the so-called Affordable Health Care bill was passed, and the guest was Barack Obama. Note that the same people running the Obama playbook seem to be involved with the Harris campaign, and this stunt was the play they had run before.
Any question about who’s really in charge?
