# Diane Sawyer WTF? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 8, 2012, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327 "2012-11-08T04:10:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/41 "2012-11-09T20:59:00Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Any woman on your TV only exists only for your sexual amusement and thus is open game for sexual jokes, but at least let them be funny. At least one woman understands. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/42 "2012-11-09T21:18:59Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > So you’re saying it was pills, then. Yanno, this is The Straight Dope. We try to fight ignorance. I was there. Guess that isn’t enough. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/43 "2012-11-09T21:24:35Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Yanno, this is The Straight Dope. We try to fight ignorance. And in between, we make jokes! ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/44 "2012-11-09T21:34:42Z")
I can buy the exhaustion excuse. In fact, I was wondering the same sort of thing about Tom Brokaw over on NBC. He seemed, to me anyway, to be ‘not quite right.’ And so, applying Occam’s Razor to choose between older folks working long hours in a high stress environment vs. drunken ex-stars who were left on-air despite the danger of them drunkenly making fools of their network, I’d have to come down on the side of exhaustion. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/45 "2012-11-09T22:33:56Z")
> [@Wargamer](#): > > I can buy the exhaustion excuse. In fact, I was wondering the same sort of thing about Tom Brokaw over on NBC. He seemed, to me anyway, to be ‘not quite right.’ And so, applying Occam’s Razor to choose between older folks working long hours in a high stress environment vs. drunken ex-stars who were left on-air despite the danger of them drunkenly making fools of their network, I’d have to come down on the side of exhaustion. I was going to come in here and jokingly post “Wait a minute, Tom Brokaw does this all the time and nobody says a word!” But seriously, Brokaw has been slurring since before he left the Evening News. I’ve always wondered if it was alcohol, a mild stroke, or what. Diane Sawyer, on the other hand, is normally kind of fawning and gushy anyway… so I can see how exhaustion would exaggerate that and make it appear that she’d been drinking. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/46 "2012-11-10T00:35:57Z")
Alright, alright. Enough of this hogwash! I’m a boom mic operator. I was four millimeters from Ms. Sawyer and I can tell you that she reeked of cheap gin and Heineken. She was so sloshed, a random cop walked in from off the street and said his breathalyzer was ‘going off’ whatever that means. He wanted to arrest her on the spot, but everyone was able to convince him that she was just having a stroke and wasn’t obviously trashed out of her mind. I didn’t want to out myself and my job, but when you folks started trying to compare this woman’s drunken shenanigans with the poor celebs who genuinely suffer from sleep deprivation and exhaustion, well, I knew I had to leap into action. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/47 "2012-11-10T05:08:26Z")
Oh, I get it. The Dope is now the place where someone speaking from a position of genuine knowledge is derided. Gosh, yer funny. How about if you stop threadshitting and take it to the Pit if you think I am a liar? ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/48 "2012-11-10T05:18:39Z")
But I don’t think you are lying. I was poking fun at you for pulling rank on the discussion just because you work there. Even though you work there, I still believe she was drunk. So I was having a chuckle at you. I honestly didn’t consider it a thread shit though. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/49 "2012-11-10T05:30:30Z")
> [@RockytheflyingS](#): > > She creeps me out when she says China is monitoring us. Old and paranoid. She was going on about how important the election process is and how the world is watching. Then she rattled off a bunch of country names, including China. I don’t think she meant they were spying on us. Although they of course do. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/50 "2012-11-10T08:23:06Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Oh, I get it. The Dope is now the place where someone speaking from a position of genuine knowledge is derided. > > Gosh, yer funny. > > How about if you stop threadshitting and take it to the Pit if you think I am a liar? That’s the thing that’s funny. You don’t have a position of knowledge. You saw her, and she didn’t look drunk to you. The fact that you think you’ve come up with conclusive evidence is funny. It’s just dueling anecdotes, and yet you think you’ve won. As **Nzinga** pointed out, it’s perfectly possible to believe you and still think that she was drunk. Or, even as pointed out, it could be pills–since the pills would not make her walk funny. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/51 "2012-11-10T11:13:08Z")
**Big T** and **Nzinga, Seated** have already made up their minds, **Cartooniverse**. We should be kind and not try to confuse them with first hand, factual information… And just to let you know, until your post I assumed she had been, well, slightly anyway, under the influence. But your evidence has changed my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/52 "2012-11-10T12:36:20Z")
She was also ‘[tired](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_dM-IvMBS8&feature=player_embedded)’ in 2008. And, no doubt due to fatigue, was taking pills and gulping what appears to be red wine on the set in [this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HtaSWZM2mMU). ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/53 "2012-11-10T12:39:28Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Okay enough of this crap. I am a cameraman. I was in that studio. Within 20 feet of her from 5:00 pm to 2:00 am almost nonstop. I watched her walk, I watched her speak and interact. I was close enough more than once to have smelled booze. > > Along with the millions in this country who do NOT live in the public spotlight, she too is allowed to be exhausted yet required to go to work. I’m not saying you’re lying, I’m saying that, unless you went to the bathroom with her in the same stall, you really don’t know any more than any of us. Functional alcohol and drug (ab)users are exceedingly skilled at hiding their use, even from people they \*live \*with. Until something happens where their routine is disrupted and their impairment become obvious…and then it generally becomes obvious to those who _don’t_ know them well before those who do know them well see it. Especially with functional users in positions of (social, political or job related) power or authority, they’re generally surrounded by people in denial as much as they are in denial. I truly do hope that you’re right and that she feels better after a good night’s sleep, but I can also say that if I’dda been there and was convinced she \*wasn’t \*drunk/high/stoned, I’d have called an ambulance to have her evaluated for a stroke. That was not a well functioning person. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/54 "2012-11-10T14:10:17Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > I was going to come in here and jokingly post “Wait a minute, Tom Brokaw does this all the time and nobody says a word!” But seriously, Brokaw has been slurring since before he left the Evening News. I’ve always wondered if it was alcohol, a mild stroke, or what. I believe that Brokaw has had a speech impediment his entire life. > [@](#): > > Diane Sawyer, on the other hand, is normally kind of fawning and gushy anyway… so I can see how exhaustion would exaggerate that and make it appear that she’d been drinking. I remember when _Primetime Live_ first started, there was a character to her manner—parodied on SNL—that made it seem like she was always flirting with her co-host and interview subjects. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/55 "2012-11-10T14:27:43Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > But I don’t think you are lying. I was poking fun at you for pulling rank on the discussion just because you work there. Even though you work there, I still believe she was drunk. So I was having a chuckle at you. I honestly didn’t consider it a thread shit though. Hmm. My apologies. Threadshitting was a harsh term. This really does point to a larger issue here. I wasn’t " pulling rank ". This is The Straight Dope. If a member brings a level of expertise (_sic_) to a discussion, it is accepted on face value that they are being truthful and accurate. I respect the fact that you think she was b.u.i. I thought your other post was disrespectful. Sorry, though, that I called you on threadshitting. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/56 "2012-11-10T14:50:15Z")
I spend a considerable amount of time around drunk women, I say she was drunk! ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/57 "2012-11-10T16:51:08Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That’s the thing that’s funny. You don’t have a position of knowledge. You saw her, and she didn’t look drunk to you. The fact that you think you’ve come up with conclusive evidence is funny. It’s just dueling anecdotes, and yet you think you’ve won. > > As **Nzinga** pointed out, it’s perfectly possible to believe you and still think that she was drunk. Or, even as pointed out, it could be pills–since the pills would not make her walk funny. [Mythbusters] I reject your reality and substitute my own. [Mythbusters] Because, you know, watching on TV is the _exact equivalent_ of actually being there… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/58 "2012-11-10T17:11:10Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I’m not saying you’re lying, I’m saying that, unless you went to the bathroom with her in the same stall, you really don’t know any more than any of us. Functional alcohol and drug (ab)users are exceedingly skilled at hiding their use, even from people they \*live \*with. Until something happens where their routine is disrupted and their impairment become obvious…and then it generally becomes obvious to those who _don’t_ know them well before those who do know them well see it. Especially with functional users in positions of (social, political or job related) power or authority, they’re generally surrounded by people in denial as much as they are in denial. > > I truly do hope that you’re right and that she feels better after a good night’s sleep, but I can also say that if I’dda been there and was convinced she \*wasn’t \*drunk/high/stoned, I’d have called an ambulance to have her evaluated for a stroke. That was not a well functioning person. Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/59 "2012-11-10T17:16:03Z")
Yeah, I totally believe you, but I still think she was drunk. But I know people that I’d have bet my house were not drunks, who were just really high functioning. Worked right beside them. Up kissing close, never smelled booze. Never saw them take a drink. Not once. I would not have believed anyone could be so taken in, until it happened to me. (20yrs experience as a bartender, child of an alcoholic parent!) It happens. So yeah, I totally believe you, that you were there. I still say - drunk, or alcohol drug combo! ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327/60 "2012-11-10T21:29:15Z")
**Cartooniverse** I respect that you were there. I still think she was acting abnormally for a professional broadcast journalist. While I have never seen anyone that has stayed up for an extended period of time act like a giddy drunk\* I will accept that explanation for now. If this is true, the network should ensure that their on air people get a bit of rest before a big night like a presidential election. If on the other hand, it is announced in the new few weeks that she is going into rehab, I will not be surprised. - I have seen lots of people that after 24-48 of no sleep act like a zombie drunk, but never a giddy drunk. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diane-sawyer-wtf/640327.md?page=4)