Fanciful flights of conspiracy hit the pages of Harper's

Occam's razor: "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."

First, the charges against Ifill would lead to her being extremely passive in her questioning of Palin and permissive in her moderating the debate.
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This strategy succeeded on both points. Ifill’s questioning and moderating was, as The Atlantic’s James Fallows remarked, “terrible.” She asked open-ended, utterly predictable questions which presented very little challenge to the candidates.

... or, perhaps Gwen Ifill is just a "terrible" moderator, period.

H/T: Free Darko