I agree with Jane and you about Klein. I believe that Klein listened to GG’s criticism of him and is not the same Klein as we used to know, either that or the real Joe Klein has emerged. If my observation is accurate, that alone shows the potential power of the Blogoshpere and one of the giants in that sphere, Glenn.

I recall that in big stateside high schools (I graduated in London), there was always a popular clique of the in-crowd--jocks, prom queens, class officers, etc. Watching national politics is the same thing with the same crowd doing the same stuff, while the journalism junkies, eager to please, report only complimentary fluff. They got invited to the parties where everybody who was somebody went. Most all human beings are nobodies in this ethos.

Mark my words and put this in your calender, boys and girls. The time is soon coming when the world, including the United States, will turn on Israel. The oil crisis is part of the reason. The US will abandon anyone at the drop of a hat when it suits American interests. Just ask the Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, the South Vietnamese and Montagnards, inter alia.

The Jews as a race of people are among the most brilliant on earth. How did they fail to learn the lessons of the holocaust? Why have they become brutish? Why don't they see the suffering of the downtrodden? Why do they loot the land of the subjugated? Why do they intern people just because they are Palestinian Arabs? They endured all these atrocities, so why do they perpetuate them?

The time is coming when Israel will stand alone, with nothing but nukes to stop the second holocaust, and like blind Samson toppling the supporting pillars, they will bring the Middle East down on their own heads.

Why are you defending liars and Courtesans. Watch how it is done. It can be done and you should be calling for it, not enabling it disguised as pretending to be 'reasonable' towards it. This is the only world we have. Let's demand that the truth be told rather than play in the sand box of the propagandists.

http://vodpod.com/watch/374454-irish-tv-interviews-bush-banned-in-u-s-wake-up-from-your-slumber

Scott Horton ("Justice After Bush" December, 2008 Harper's) reports in footnote 2:

"I was twice warned by PBS producers, in advance of appearances on The Newshour with Jim Leher, that I could use the word 'torture' in the abstract but that I was to refrain from applying it to the administration's policies."

Sadly, neither the PBS ombudsman nor the Newhour is much concerned.

Fly back to Hollywood.

My goodness, what a crabby bunch. I was extending someone's observation that the Meet the Press type programs have an inherent problem - that to get people on, you have to softball them. I'm not particularly defending anything, just mulling over what might be a solution to this problem.

I was suggesting that interviewing these people, however softly, had some value, and that the critique of what they had to say could be done by other people on another program.

The only way to have a hardball press would be if they all conspired to be no other way (so that government people either had to put up with it or not appear), and I can't see that happening.

I found the Stretch/Livni interview much more confrontational than the Pre-Iraq War American media interviews.

Atleast Gregory didn't conclude his interview with "Good Luck and God Bless" or "Mossad Rocks!"

To me, this represents "progress" from our multi-million dollar Beltway press corps.

You wonder how much "antipathy" the media should show Israel's foreign minister. I don't think there is any antipathy in asking a foreign minister to justify a foreign policy. I mean, couldn't the foreign minister simply provide a justification?

You go on to suggest that some questions would just be pointless, like asking whether we really landed on the moon. You suggest that questioning Israel's right to respond to Hamas rockets with bombing might be an example.

I-P disputes have a long history, and many people would indeed dispute Israel's right to respond. They might claim, for example, that it isn't really a response at all, but merely another example of the routine projection of military force that Israel's policy of occupation requires.

Whether you agree with that or not, it is a point that people make, so shouldn't the Israeli foreign minister be given the chance to respond to it?

I think there is something to be said for seeing these people (Rice, Axelrod, etc.) up close and listening to their words, even if the interviewer was uncritical.

Okay. What is that "something?" Is there anything about the mere presence of a politician in a TV studio that imparts anything different than what you would get just watching them give a speech?

I think omooex's point is a good one - what is there to be gained in information value by giving famous political figures yet another forum to recite talking points? One would imagine the point an interview program would be to elicit more information.

As it stands, the appearance of famous people on a program is merely a way of boosting that program's ratings. It's a "get:" Meet the Press is literally no different than Entertainment Tonight in this regard.

The interviewing and the critiquing would have to be separate media functions, and it's unreasonable to expect that one person would do both (esp. on the same program).

Unreasonable how? Exactly how?

I wouldn't come on your program and be treated nicely if I knew you were going to rip me to shreds later...

What is being "rip[ped] to shreds" in your estimation? Asking tough questions, as the British media does not infrequently?

I guess that we differ in that you don't seem to see TV interviews as a potential means for getting information to the people about what the powerful are up to. Is it that you don't think it's an appropriate venue... or that you don't think it's an appropriate activity regardless of venue?