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« Locally, Dread | Main | Some among us have known all along »

Friday, 23 April 2010

Comments

Mannie Sherberg
Any American who reads the excerpted interview has to marvel at the differences between American journalism and Israeli journalism. It's hard to imagine any American interviewer asking Barack Obama questions as direct, as hard-hitting, and as unrelenting as those asked by the two Israeli interviewers. Not even Fox's Bret Baehr, in his deservedly-praised interview with Obama a few weeks ago, came close to this kind of tough, no-nonsense interrogation. Maybe it's a matter of "social distance." One gets the feeling that for the Israeli interviewers, Bibi Netanyahu is just another guy; for American interviewers, Barack Obama is alway THE president of the United States. That makes a big difference. The interesting thing is that -- despite their best efforts -- the two Israelis didn't really get much out of Bibi. He said as much as he wanted, but not much more -- and he proved he's every bit as skillful at evasion and platitudinous bloviating as Obama at his best (or worst). My guess is that the interviewers left the interview feeling frustrated and foiled -- as I felt after reading it. Maybe the lesson here is that a good politician is always an overmatch for a good interviewer, whether Israeli or American. Incidentally, as noted, the interview we read was excerpted; wouldn't all of us love to read the excerpts! They might leave us with a very different view of what's really going on in Bibi's head.

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