Friedman on the Kalb Report
Thomas Friedman stopped by the Kalb Report last night (filling in for Bob Novak, who was previously scheduled. It was neither as thrilling as the last Kalb Report (with Judy Miller) nor as thrilling as it would have been with a feisty Novak.
But ’tis will serve…
Perhaps the most interesting exchange occurred when host Marvin Kalb accused Friedman of being a bit too first-person in his column.
KALB: Why have you turned your column into “I am Thomas Friedman and this is where I am?”
FRIEDMAN: I think that’s over pronounced and overstated. I don’t use the personal pronoun that much.
KALB: Do you want me to go through the examples?
(Friedman then deflected by blabbing on about something to do with “establishing a personal relationship with readers…”)
Friedman ducked questions about Judy Miller and the New York Times’ handling of her situation — “Whatever I feel about that issue and mny bosses, I’ll communicate directly to them…I’m not going to get into it. I’m just not going to get into it” — and essentially explained why:
“[Sulzberger] bet on me [by making him the NYT foreign affairs columnist] and for that I will be forever grateful.”
Isn’t blind loyalty adorable?
More quotes and pics after the jump…(thanks to on the scene man C. Repine for the reporting and pics)
Friedman’s quick lesson for journalists: “You have to like people. There are so many journalists who actually hate people. You need to convey that you like people, that you like and can listen to the crazy things they do. If you convey to people how much it is you like hearing whatever it is…the most important lesson is being a good listener. Listening is a sign of respect. When you show people that respect, it’s amazing what they’ll show you back.”
When asked about the blogosphere, Friedman said that “anyone can be an opinion maker, but not everyone can have an audience.”
He also said that it’s difficult to be a good commentator/analyst without being a good reporter. “When you report on a story five or six times, you start noticing threads and patterns” that might otherwise be missed.
(“Yeah, yeah, the world is flat…but check out these shoes I got in India! Half off!”)
“People ask me what I do for a living…I translate English to English…I take an issue and make it to where I can understand it. And if I can understand it, my mom can probably understand it. And between me and my mom, we’ve probably got 95% of Americans covered…”
When asked about Al Jazeera, he referred to it as a “work in progress.” He also said:
“Al Jazeera is a lot closer to Fox than CBS. They’re both fair and balanced — from a certain point of view…” (The audience thoroughly enjoyed that crack.)
(“Psst…Marvin: Lean in close and I’ll tell you what I really think about Judy…”)
He seemed to think that Al Jazeera doesn’t get as much credit it deserved, explaining that he’d appeared on the network several times and was always able to say what he wanted to say.
On the Iraq war, he explained that he never bought the argument that Iraq was a WMD threat, and wrote a column to that effect before the war began. He did, however, still feel that the war could be justified on other grounds.
Friedman repeatedly explained that he didn’t come to his decision to support the war lightly. He said that he did not come to his conclusion because “[he] love[s] George Bush or because [he] hate[s] George Bush.”
He had many reservations about the execution of the war, and had some rather harsh words for Donald Rumsfeld, saying that he though he was a “really bad guy” and that “he’s responsible for more bad decisions” than anyone else in the execution of the war, etc. Also saying “I’m not the least bit interested in his opinion.” (Again, more audience applause).
In reducing terrorism, he stressed the importance of “changing the context” in the Middle East. He pointed out that the second most-populous Muslim country in the world is India, but they don’t have the problems with Muslim extremism found in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran. He credited this to the open Indian society — the fact that a Muslim woman sits on the supreme court, they have a Muslim president, and that a Muslim actress can go on a television debate show and tell an Imam to “shove it” and have the security to do so.
He said the attacks of 9/11 were the distilled result of 50 years of bad policy toward the Muslim world, explaining that for decades our policy has been to say “Keep the pump open, the price low and be nice to the Yehudis (Jews) and you can do whatever you want out back…” …which included repressing women and minorities, preaching hate and intolerance, etc. And on 9/11, it finally boiled over.
When asked if he thought Americans weren’t doing a good enough job in attempting to understand Islam, he turned the tables back on the Muslim world. He explained that more or less every university in America teaches either Arabic or some form of Islamic studies, whereas there is only one school that teaches American studies, and it’s in Cairo. So there’s no lack of willingness to learn/understand on the American side, but more so on the Middle Eastern side.
With regards to Iran, he said he didn’t write much about it because the solution was so simple. All the EU would have to go to get Iran to open up its nuclear facilities would be to say they’re not going to buy Iranian oil anymore. He said that the power certainly exists for the Western world to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but what they/we lack is the will.
He also talked about the impending social/political explosion in the region, as currently all the bloated oil revenues are going to inefficient government jobs, and as the price of oil comes down, they won’t be able to sustain those inefficient jobs, the oppressive regimes will no longer have their massive cash flows, and thus there will be some sort of a revolution.
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Nadine Cheung
Editor, The Job Post
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