Barbara Walters Looks for 'Fascinating' Flaws of Palin, Limbaugh

Newsbusters By Colleen Raezler December 6, 2008 - 10:41 ET ABC’s Barbara Walters showed the 13.2 million viewers who watched her Thursday, Dec. 4 “Ten Most Fascinating People” special that she can swallow pretty much anything but mainstream conservatism. Walters gave cushy treatment to actors Will Smith, Frank Langella and Scientologist Tom Cruise, Olympian Michael Phelps, comedienne Tina Fey, embarrassingly photographed actress/singer Miley Cyrus, and pregnant "man" Thomas Beatie. She named liberal President-elect Barack Obama 2008’s most fascinating person, but went head to head against well-known conservative Rush Limbaugh, and ran repeated criticisms of former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Walters asked Palin’s impersonator, Fey, to mock the Alaska Governor one more time, yet challenged Limbaugh to say something "nice" about Obama. Walters did not interview Palin but did air an embarrassing interview clip and a montage of pundits calling her a "drag" on the Republican presidential ticket. At the end of her interview with Fey, Walters stated, "I want you to, as Sarah Palin, tell me how pleased you are with this wonderful interview that I did, okay?" Fey complied: FEY as Palin: I think this interview went real good. I think this went better than a couple of the other ones that I did. (Winks.) (Laughs) WALTERS: (Laughs.) I love you, Sarah Palin. FEY as Palin: Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Fey also told Walters her impersonation wasn’t "mean" because "we stuck to, a lot of times, things that she herself had said." Fey added, "There’s a very strange double standard because it’s a woman portraying another woman. The jokes we used to do about George W. Bush were that he was an idiot. No one ever would stop and say, like, ‘well, that seems kind of mean.’" Walters failed to ask Fey what she thinks about the news media’s obsession with her unflattering impersonations of Palin. Click title for article