60 Minutes Ahmadinejad interview w/Mike Wallace

[Chadman]

Anyone else watch this? I figured someone would have started a thread on it by now. I found it pretty interesting in some respects. Some quick observations and opinions:

1. The dude has some really cold, dark eyes.

2. I thought Mike Wallace did a very fair interview, not liberal media hysterics, as I expected to see posted here already. OF course he had to be someone middle of the road and could not just rip into the guy, but he did try to pin him down on some of the outrageous comments he has made. I don't think he was leading the guy into left wing areas, and tried to get the guy to explain his comments, which the guy deflected pretty much.

3. I thought Ahmadinejad was either extremely well coached, or extremely up to date on public relations and making a case for his country in its situation.

4. I found his answer to Wallace's question about what he thinks about Bush pretty funny and understandable. "What do you want me to say about Bush?" he said with a smile. I think that's pretty revealing and probably worthy of a dismissive response to that softball. I think his comments about Bush's attitude and talking down to his country, and his aggressiveness in the world and it motivating hatred towards the US is probably true. I've thought that for a few years now.

5. I thought it very scary how quickly Ahmadinejad got serious, clear and dark about the consequences of Bush ignoring his letter and requests for discussions or offers by his or other countries. I've read a lot about the real time to worry with Islamafascist leaders in the past, and that they usually give only one warning, or onme offer of some kind, and then they act or take action against those that ignore them or give them no value. I'd say Bush falls directly in that line. In fact, he said as much as Bush should be worried. Baseless BS? Maybe. The dude looked cold as ice - moreso than at any other time in that interview.

Would like to hear other's opinions.

 

[ImFeklhr]

Hearing comments Wallace has made about the interview with Ahmadinejad reminds me that "journalists" get so star struck with head's of state.

He seems to generally respect this nutjob, though I am not saying the inerview was completely biased. Blows my mind.

 

[djv]

You wonder sometimes why they bother. But you can bet our government was all for it. And they have there expert shrinks going over every word to pick up anything that gives clues to this dude. So to us something that seems of no use. May be more then we know.

 

[gardenweasel]

from lenin to stalin to mao to castro to khomeni to arafat to amahdinnerjacket, liberals have had a soft spot for america hating dictators....

hell, they even admired mussolini back in the 30s....

this one topped rather polishing saddam`s knob a few years back...

if you didn`t know better,you`da thought mike was interviewing gandhi....

in other news, cnn talking head carol lin just wished fidel castro a happy birthday..... TWICE...



/nothing new here

 

[gardenweasel]

why 88 year old mike wallace?....

""This interview is an opportunity to see from the Arab perspective, which Americans rarely are capable of with an open mind. The attitude and the bellicosity of the interviewer is an example of why the Iranian President doesn’t grant interviews to many American journalists.""

lol...the iranian president doesn't grant interviews much to "real" american journalists, because he doesn't have direct control over the interview as he would in iran, where he is dictator.....


hey mike....ask him about the human rights abuses in iran....

ask him about shutting down iran's bloggers....

ask him why their economy is going in the crapper even with all their oil money, because their buying arms for their terror outreach programs....

ask him how the leading mullahs have become so filthy rich....

and as a personal favor to me ask him about the female canadian photographer they beat to death for taking a picture of one of their prisons...

but don't sit there and him what he thinks of "pres. chimpy mchaliburton"....and don't sit there and tell him how good he looks, like he's from some foocking teen magazine.....

i hope the little tyrant had the courtesy to give mike a reacharound...

 

[danmurphy jr]

Who are "they" that admired Benito Mussolini in the 30's? Sincerely curious
Do believe that it was Ronald Reagan and George Bush who polished Saddam's knob while they were dumping WMDs on Iraq to use against Iran.
Incidently, Why did he require that CNN air the entire interview this week non-edited.
Why give him a podium anyway. He's considered a terrorist. Israel and Lebanon should be the focus of the media. Maybe 60 minutes felt he was ratings friendly.

 

[gardenweasel]

c`mon dan...it`s no revelation that the left swoons over these dictators.....look at castro and the media...the hollywood types...carter and khomeini...he literally drove the shah out of iran...and started this whole mess...

..stalin was our ally vs the nazi`s....just like saddam was the lesser of two evils vs iran...

france was once our ally...no more...allegiances are fluid...


here's a quote from mussolini....


"The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State--a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values--interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people."

rightwingers believe in the voluntary actions of the individual as the first line of attack for a given problem.......the fascist movement was about absorbing all individuals into some kind of fatherland super-state....fascism and communism are both collectivist systems, and both belong on the left-wing side of the political spectrum....imo...

but we`re getting off track....i don`t want to argue ideological concepts...

that was a softball interview...by any standard...he was throwing ahma fat pitches so he could smash bush...

i keep referring to past history....doesn`t this remind you of the 1930`s....

dear herr hitler(ahamadinnerjacket):

"we know that the warmonger churchill's(bush`s) policies have cause you to build up your arsenal.... please, bring us more peace....and,btw,wipe out the jews"....



history`s repeating itself ...

would it scare you for iran to have a nuclear weapon?...and do you believe that,ahma would,as he states,be willing to sacrifice a few million iranians to wipe israel off the map?.....

should we roll the dice?...

 

[gardenweasel]

as far as mussolini`s concerned,do you remember the "at least mussolini made the trains run on time" quote....very reminiscent of the rationale you hear regarding saddam keeping iraq in check.....

you know,the old "saddam`s a monster and murdered hundred`s of thousands,but at least he kept the iaqi`s from murdering each other" saw.....

strange rationalizations...basically from the left...

a great quote worth posting...

""War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.""
... John Stuart Mill

 

[Chadman]

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one gw. Of course Ahmad would try to control an interview, the time, the place - why shouldn't he? And why Mike Wallace? Well, Wallace is probably one of the top interviewers in our history, able to secure interviews with some unreachable people during his years. He asked him about the multitude of suicide bombers he has on the payroll waiting for someone to encroach upon Iran. He asked him about why he wants Israel pushed off the face of the map and into the sea. He challenged him to have some courage and answer the question about Bush, when clearly Ahmad didn't want to, and it clearly got his dander up when Wallace played that card. He smiled, sure, but you could tell there was a rise in him about being challenged that way. He focused in on the one serious question, asked it four times in different ways but kept after him, regarding his willingness to resume contact and have discussions with the US after so many years of non-discussions. All important things. Wallace is a good interviewer - he has done some remarkable ones in the past - and he uses effective interviewing techniques to try to get the person to relax and warm up for tougher questions and serious stuff. Jesus/Allah, if somebody like O'Reilly or Matthews was in that room, he'd probably be dead right now, and we wouldn't have been able to see into those dark, dead eyes, or see how chilling the guy really is.

It's so easy to just dismiss the interview and the fact Wallace did it, but I for one am glad I got a chance to see the guy and see him answer (or dance around the subject which tells you what you need to know, too) for some of his comments and actions. Sometimes I think you guys dismiss the abilities of the human to look at something and see through the soft stuff and BS and see the things that matter in these situations. Many people can't but many can. I'm glad it was Wallace, and I'm glad I got to see the guy deal with some of that - or at least try to avoid it.

 

[dr. freeze]

funny how the media acts like they have no idea how propaganda works and how they play right into the plans of the enemy propagandists

yet i am sure any school of journalism has a multitude of education on propaganda

either this leftist media is just plain ignorant or they really do hate America....what will it be?

 

[smurphy]

You and the word leftist. Are you some kind of bet, like in 'Super Troopers' where your seeing how many times you can infuse a word into your conversations? ....I think from now on, you should say 'meow' when you'd otherwise say 'leftist' and lets see how your posts come out.

 

[shamrock]

my friend garden, your taking this leftist thing little to far. You name every Hell bound dictator of the last century, and say leftist worship them. Then conveniently dismiss Reagan, 41, Rumsfeld for arming to the teeth the Taliban (OBL), actually teaching them the strategy they now employ using rpg to take attack helicopters down, like shooting ducks in a barrel. Then you conveniently state how Carter forced the Shah out of power, but conveniently again ignore Reagan, Rumsfeld, etc. tumbling the Iraqi government to prop up Saddam, and then arm him with every weapon possible, including chemicals, biological, it all came from USA.

All the shit we are going through now, was initially initiated from right wing establishments in Washington. Now we deal with Saddam mess in Iraq, and OBL in Afghanistan. Both were the soup du jour, choice and preference of Reagan 41 etc.

you can't accuse one & dismiss the other as the best choice, naturally the best choice was to sit out and watch the Soviet s and Arabs kill each other.

Ps hope you got that under the distance, and not under 9.5

 

[danmurphy jr]

Wow, it's amazing. If all the replies in this thread were strung together it would still make sense. Rather than piss everybody off with thoughts about that, good thread. I guess that's what its about.

 

[djv]

Dictators are from the left? Wow there as far right as you can get. Power Sucking folks all the way. AS for Iran's Idiot. This interview helped expose him to many who were watching for every little move. Way above most of the thinking here.