So it turns out Gwen Ifill never told the Commission on Presidential Debates about her book Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, which is to be released on Inauguration Day. When she’s asked if her book creates a conflict of interest, Ifill suggests that such concerns might be motivated by racism. But, as Andy McCarthy demonstrates, Ifill and her colleagues at PBS have been quite concerned about conflicts of interest involving public figures. In fact, during the 2004 vice presidential debate, Ifill insinuated that Dick Cheney may have opposed trade sanctions against Iran because he was the CEO of Halliburton:

Keep in mind that during this debate, John Edwards was hammering Dick Cheney on Halliburton, mentioning the company by name eight times. To be fair, Ifill did bring up Edwards’s work as a trial lawyer. But she framed the issue as a “personal attack” on John Edwards rather than a conflict of interest. She asked Cheney: