The Vice Presidential Debate

The Vice Presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden happens tonight and I have been doing some digging on the moderator, whose role could be key. The moderator is Gwen Ifill who The Guardian descibe thus:

"Tonight's forum will be moderated by Gwen Ifill, a correspondent and moderator on nationally televised public television news programmes. She is seen as a tough questioner unlikely to be caught up in trivialities. Ifill has written an upcoming book about African American politicians entitled, "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama" that has some Republicans questioning her neutrality."

The BBC of course do not even mention Gwen Ifill, presumably in case anyone decides to do some investigating...

Anyway, Gwen Ifill - Wikipedia report that in the 2004 VP debate

"Cheney said he would need more than the allotted 30 seconds to react to a statement by Edwards, Ifill told him "Well, that's all you've got." Ifill said that although it was not her intent, Democratic partisans were delighted with her because she was seen as being "snippy" to Cheney."

But here's the real meat (my emphasis):

"Ifill is writing a book with the title The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, which is scheduled to be released January 20, 2009, Inauguration Day... Ifill did not inform the debate comission about her book. The publisher, Random House, says of the book "Drawing on interviews with power brokers like Senator Obama...Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history."

Hmm, does anyone else smell a rat; a very large rotting rat?