Another Blown Interview With An Enemy Tyrant

Twelve years ago, when CBS News sent Dan Rather to Baghdad to interview Iraq's Saddam Hussein, I asked:

"If one is not going to ask a dictator anything approaching the truth about his actions, why bother interviewing him? Isn't the whole thing morally compromised and journalistically meaningless?

"What would we think of a radio network that had nationally broadcast an interview with Adolf Hitler in 1944 in which the Fuhrer was asked nothing about Nazi anti-Semitism or the concentration camps?

"An interview in which the American reporter warmly clasped the Nazi leader with both hands? An interview procured through the services of an American Nazi sympathizer (as the Rather interview was through the services of longtime friend of America's enemies, Ramsey Clark)?

"Would we have deemed the interview a 'coup' or a moral fraud that only gave Hitler an opportunity to portray himself as a decent human? That is what CBS and Rather did, and the news community is giving them high-fives."

Three years later, when CBS sent "60 Minutes" star Mike Wallace to Tehran to interview Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I wrote:

"Interviews with evil leaders are meaningless at best and destructive at worst. Few reporters will ask real questions or challenge the propaganda responses of these leaders. The interviews merely offer them invaluable 'humanizing' time and ask questions that reconfirm the low state of television news.

"Here are some of the tough questions Mike Wallace asked one of the vilest leaders on earth today: What he thinks of President Bush, why he is concerned about how his jacket looks on television and what he does for leisure. Never once did he challenge Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attacks on America — such as America's loving war, seeking to be an imperial power or oppressing its own people.

"When asked about his statements that the Holocaust is a 'myth,' Ahmadinejad replied, 'What I did say was, if this is a reality, if this is real, where did it take place?' Wallace did not respond to the leader of a country saying 'if' the Holocaust 'is real' with a single question.

"But he probably laughed more with Ahmadinejad than any American news reporter has ever laughed on camera with the president of the United States."

NBC News decided last week it was its turn to give a tyrant — in this case the representative of tyrants — extended time on American television when Ann Curry interviewed Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.

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