Mood:
downTopic: "Changin' Channels" (2)
Mike Wallace, as previously indicated, has interviewed everybody. Frodo never felt that Mr. Wallace was intimidated or overtly personal in the attempt to provide information about a celebrity or political figure. He was simply very direct in his questioning. One of his most famous interviews was with the Ayatollah Khomeini, in which he quoted to Khomeini former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as saying that Khomeini was "crazy." Perhaps that is why the current Iranian Head of State agreed to meet with Wallace for tonight's episode of "60 Minutes."
He was ready for Wallace. Calm and collected, always smiling, he made the kind of points that Civil Engineers (of which he is one, and all of whom, no matter the nationality, seem to be markedly conservative) would appreciate. He left Wallace with the argument that Israel as a presence in the Middle East is improperly placed. The Jewish State, he argued should be in Germany, or in America, but that there is no valid reason for the country to exist in that part of the world. Wallace, missed the opportunity because he was irritated that the little greaser had avoided one of his earlier questions.
Later on he obtained a "carte blanche" from Wallace to address the failure of the Bush Administration to even respond to his letter to the President of the United States. He sucked Wallace in to feeding him the point that he was merely trying to tell the President of the United States that his "behavior" was not in the best interests of world peace.
He never referred to Wallace's Faith, and Wallace was unable to draw him into some sort of remark which all the world would interpret as Anti-Semitic or threatening. Although Wallace recovered to avoid an early termination to the interview by flattering his subject, he was unable to crack the "force field" with which his subject had surrounded himself. Mike never got off the defensive.
Frodo supposes, as he indicated in his discussion about Joe Lieberman, that he should add journalists to his list of people who sometimes don't know when their best days are now distant memories. Staying too long can be embarrassing, and tonight's show proved that conclusively. Besides, the Redskins are playing their first exhibition game on another channel, and Frodo needs a bit of an escape from one more egg on the face of CBS News. And Katie ain't even on yet!
Posted by loveysdaddyga
at 9:41 PM EDT
