Ahmadinajad. By George, I got it (maybe) (10 cents)

Last night's TV was surreal. C-Span showed a rebroadcast of Sunday Night's 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace interviewing Ahmadinajad. The interview was about 30 minutes. Then, they showed the full interview (without cuts), which ran about 60 minutes. Then, they had a call in show, but only for a few minutes, where almost everyone seemed to think that Ahmadinajad seemed like an OK kind of guy ("even if I don't agree with what he says all the time'), but Mike Wallace was a boob. If this is not surreal, what is?

In the first place, Ahmadinajad is America's sworn enemy. But here is he having a almost friendly interview with Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace is 88 years old. Ok, so he looks 70, and is willing to fly to Tehran of all places to interview Ahmanijad. And they both sit there, and smile at each other. It doesn't make any difference what they were saying; the important thing is that they were smiling, and no one raised their voice (or even their eyebrows) and it looked like they were old buddies sitting around having a beer.

Now, when you are 88 years old, and have a yellow pad in front of you, and are in Iran, you don't need to be a brilliant questioner to get the red badge of courage. And, truth be told, Wallace's questions were not always on point, and his follow up, where it existed, was weak. I mean real weak, things like "are you being serious?". That is not good follow up.

And his interrogatoree was well prepared. He knew how many Americans were in prison and who lacked health insurance. He knew exactly how to sound like an American liberal.

Not where Israel is concerned of course. There he was adamant, but he had no solution. And the Israeli's? He likes them well enough, just not their government or their country. They can go somewhere else - like Europe or the USA. Just not on 'other peoples' land'.

He was good at finessing the embarassing questions, and the follow-ups let him escape with his finessing. It was a coup for the Iranian.

The C-Span callers also focused on Wallace's sometime petulance, and his treating Ahmadinajad rather informally. "I think he needs to be shown more respect; he is the president of their country." Come on, callers!! Show him respect? Surreal.

A lot will be written about this. The Wall Street Journal had a couple of good, and contrasting articles today, one concluding that Wallace did a good job, but that Ahmadinajad is just a media master. I think that is going too far. The other saying that Wallace did not ask the hard questions, and giving a list of them, mostly very specific ones about horrific happenings in the country.

That may be accurate, but it misses the point. This was not about substance. This was about 'getting the interview' (to paraphrase McLuan, the interview was the message) and secondly to entertain (both Wallace, a/k/a CBS, and the Iranian president wanted entertainment value, for their own purposes).

Ahmadinajad is a horrible person. Unfortunately, we will find that out more and more as time goes on. Hopefully, we will be able to do something about it. But it seems like many Americans won't believe that. Like Uncle Joe Stalin, and the early Adolph Hitler, too many of us will conclude that he can't be all bad, he even spends "quality time" with his three children.