Van Susteren hops aboard Palin's bus - and takes her viewers for a ride

Fox News host Greta Van Susteren aired the first part of her interview with Sarah Palin last night, during which she "hopped on the [book tour] bus with Governor Palin." But the people who were really taken for "a ride" were Van Susteren's viewers: throughout the nearly 40-minute long interview, which spanned questions of policy and political ambitions, Van Susteren failed to disclose that her husband, John Coale, reportedly advised Palin after her 2008 vice presidential run and reportedly stated that he conceived of and created Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC.

This lack of disclosure isn't terribly surprising given Van Susteren's track record. It's not like she bothered to mention that fact when she used her Fox perch to actively "campaign" to secure the interview and hype Palin's memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life.

And it's not terribly surprising given Fox's record of giving free rein to its evening commentators to seamlessly merge commentary and advocacy, most notably in the case of Glenn Beck. If Fox isn't concerned about its Beck problem, presumably Van Susteren's journalistic malpractice isn't even showing up on their radar screen.   

Maybe Van Susteren will go rogue tonight when she airs the next installment of her Palin interview and, in a radical departure from Fox's status quo, disclose her conflict of interest. But somehow I doubt that she'll get off the bus and on the level with her viewers.