What gave you that incorrect impression?
hmmm
Hussein the humanitarian homebody…
So are you saying that you’re now more sympathetic to him?
I am guessing Binarydrone means humanized in opposition to demonized.
Humanitarian is an entirely different matter.
Your reasoning is weird: if the interview with Saddam did make somebody more sympathetic to him, what of it? If the media were to refuse to show an historic interview with an important figure (however mad, bad, and dangerous to know they were) because people might become more sympathetic to that figure, then those media are no longer independent. They are performing a job for the government. Surely the media’s job is to let people make up their own minds?
GOM: So Dan goes on the air and calls this guy “Mr. President”!
Sorry, Grumpy Ol’ Man, but that’s because he is the Iraqi president. It is a primary journalistic principle that you should present different sides of a story by talking to people on different sides of the issue, no matter how scummy you think they are. And it is a primary canon of respectable journalistic practice that you use accepted conventional titles when interviewing or referring to people in the news. You are not allowed to invent your own forms of address such as “Hey Scumbucket”, no matter how much more appropriate than conventional titles you personally feel they would be.
Not really, and I think that you are making somewhat of a leap here. What I am suggesting is that watching him speak showed me that he is not so very different than our politicians (at least in rhetorical style). I am also stating that I think that is the main source of the objection to this interview. Once the enemy becomes human in our eyes, they are a lot harder to kill than cardboard bad guy cutouts.
Precisely correct.
GOM, I am baffled by your point here.
First, you post this, without attribution:
This is a part of a quote by then-President Bill Clinton, from 1998. What Clinton actually said was:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/57608.stm
Anyway, what’s your point here in quoting Bill Clinton saying how evil Saddam Hussein is? Do you think we don’t believe that Saddam Hussein is a Bad Guy, but gee, maybe we’ll believe Bill Clinton? That’s dumb–nobody in this thread has said that Saddam Hussein is not a Bad Guy. Indeed, the entire thrust of our collective argument is that even though Saddam is a Bad Guy, he should be allowed to be heard.
And why say coyly, “Not from a media guy, and not from the transcript”? Why not just say it was Bill Clinton? Were you afraid we might find out it was him?
Then you say:
Dan Rather addressed Saddam Hussein as “Mr. President” because that is the official, diplomatically requested and sanctioned way to address him. If he had been interviewing the Pope, he would have addressed him as “Your Holiness” because that is the official, diplomatically requested and sanctioned way to address the Pope. Whether or not you may be offended by a newsperson addressing a Catholic Pope as “Your Holiness”, the fact remains that that is how one addresses him. And whether or not you may be offended by a newsperson addressing Saddam Hussein as “Mr. President”, the fact remains that that is how one addresses him. Period.
You would address Kim Jung Il as “Mr. President”, too.
And, um…
…that’s what a “transcript” is. A word-for-word version of what was actually said. And yeah, they’re usually pretty “rough”. You want to wait for a tidied-up version, you’ll have to wait for someone to write a book, I guess, and then he’ll leave out all the “UNINTEL” bits and the parts where someone else in the room evidently “helped out” with the translating, and then you can complain that the transcript has been edited and isn’t “word-for-word”. “I’d sure like to know exactly what was said at that interview…” you can grumble.
You did. Let’s review:
GOM posted: “Most dictators are thugs…Plus putting any murderer on the air offends me.”
AZCowboy posted: “how do you know that Saddam is a murderous thug? The media, by chance (or have you met him personally)?”
GOM posted: “If you haven’t been watching Saddam’s track record, including what happened to his own son-in-law, then maybe you could somehow be willing to reject my conclusion that he is a thug.”
AZCowboy assumed, since you didn’t admit to knowing Saddam personally, that your reference to “watching Saddam’s track record” was a reference to some form of media. Please correct this assumption if it is inaccurate.
GOM posted: “Here’s a quote, not from the transcript, and not from a media guy…”
While you didn’t provide a citation, I assumed the following quote was the words of GW. DDG has clarified the error of my assumption. But your intent is still ambiguous, if not spurious.
You also didn’t explain how you came across such a quote. Did you hear it first hand, or did you hear it through a media source?
You seem to be suggesting that the media is OK as long as the message sits well with your world-view, but it is somehow repulsive if it doesn’t. However, you have conveniently failed to take any specific position. Please take one, or this is just a waste of time.
The Saddam interview would be propaganda – if CBS calculated that its audience ought to be persuaded to pity poor Saddam and believe everything he says. But I’ll wager nobody at CBS thinks that.
A good journalist does not draw conclusions for the audience. The audience is free to conclude what they wish: that Saddam is a damn liar. If you don’t want to run the risk of being bewitched by Saddam’s irresistible charisma, just shut your ears and sing LA LA LA.
You know, that’s the first good argument I’ve heard in favor of going to war with Saddam…
So, GOM, where should we draw the line? Many think that Henry Kissinger is a “murderous thug” given the secret bombing of Cambodia, the Pinochet coup in Chile, …
I am sure Dan Rather has interviewed Kissinger before. In fact, when the media interview Kissinger, they present him as a wise and knowing diplomat and foreign policy expert … whereas they present Saddam (much more honestly IMHO) as the ruthless dictator of a country we are likely about to go to war with.
In short, I can’t see what the hell your beef is and how the hell you want the media to behave in a free society.
Should we draw a line?
(Besides leaving it to the news organization’s best judgement)
I’m looking on the Internet and can’t find the transcript to the little summary Rather gives after the interview. Can anyone find that? He talked about Saddam like he was a kind old grandfather figure, facing impossible odds with determination and courage. He said Saddam viewed himself as the “ultimate survivor” and thinks that after the “allied invaders” (that’s us) leave, he and the Iraqi people will survive and press on.
You know, it’s too bad Dan Rather isn’t older. Perhaps if he was on the beat back during WWII, he could have had an opportunity to interview Hitler and helped America empathize with his desperate situation. I bet President Hitler also viewed himself as the quintessential survivor, and despite the allied invaders, he and his country and his ideals would live on.
You know, what’s wrong with transmitting Saddam Hussein’s own opinion about hmself? Even the most anti-Saddam Hussein among us realize that he has survived an awful lot of adversity, at least if we’ve had our eyes open. I hope you trust the American public enough to believe that we can draw the correct conclusions about whether his survival is due to his extreme virtuousness and protection by God, or whether he’s just a craftier bastard than the people who have tried to off him or depose him.
I actually thought it was funny, in a sad sort of way, how he kept inferring during the interview that the U.S. was trying to bring down an 8,000 year old civilization, as if his ouster would erase the Mesopotamian contributions to world culture. Yeah, sure, Saddam Hussein is responsible for the development of the cradle of Western civilization, even though he wasn’t born yet…yeah, that’s it. I can draw my own conclusions, thankyouverymuch, and don’t need those perspectiveless schmos who are unable to do so themselves to make decisions about what information I should have access to. I don’t see how the act of eliciting/transmitting opinions necessarily converts viewers to the Dark Side.
From an old cowboy…
“It was gutless and cowardly,” pronounced the I-man of Rather’s performance. “And treasonous,” he added for good measure.
“It was beyond disgraceful. … Saddam Hussein came off almost like Mother Teresa. … It was so disgraceful it was repulsive,” complained the acerbic talk host.
**
The Rather knuckle-rapping was particularly noteworthy given the fact that Imus has had the CBS newsman on his own show dozens of times**, and staunchly defended him after Bernard Goldberg’s Rather exposé “Bias” hit the best-seller list last year.
I see…
I think.
It’s okay to put Saddam on the air because it’s just more entertainment?
On the two tv shows you mention we might see some murderers. The difference is that on Cops and America’s Most Wanted we see usually see those murderers heading for justice, not someone spewing out propaganda about the alleged “freedom” in his country.
So can I conclude that you are in favor of having this thug Saddam brought to justice for the murders he has committed? Or is that suddenly something that’s not any of our business?
Just wondering…
I suspect you will be hard pressed to find anyone who would not like to see “Saddam brought to justice”.
Just curious, would you like to see Gee Dubya brought to justice for the state-sponsored murder (death row executions) of prisoners while he was Governor of Texas?
On second thought, don’t bother answering that, how about this: How do you know Saddam is a murdering thug? Is that an original thought of yours based on firsthand knowledge, or have you been listening to that US spread propaganda?
Oh, sorry, I forgot. You listen to Imus in the morning. Talk radio - the paragon of unbiased reporting. Nothing but the truth, huh?
So, I ask again: Did you mean to post this in MPSIMS? Because you sure don’t seem to be interested in responding to anything of substance posted in this thread.
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Good. It looks like it’s going to happen.
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Bad. Very bad form. Comparing Bush to Saddam… Comparing justice to injustice…
:smack:
Unreal.
Justice is in the eye of the beholder.
Frankly, my point wasn’t to equate Saddam with Bush. Which was why I suggested you not answer that question.
I did ask, “How do you know Saddam is a murdering thug?”
The question isn’t whether he is or not, the question is how do you know?
The guy was a great journalist in his day (his Vietnam and Watergate reporting was excellent), a decent anchor for ten years or so after Uncle Walter [retired/was kicked out to make way for young blood], then was increasingly wierd for the next ten years, and has lately been moving from wierd on into creepy.
Definitely time to retire.