Jon Stewart's man-crush, shared by the world! Apparently Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria is the heartthrob of the
Middle-East-expert-politically-centrist-super-academic-Yale-and-Harvard-educated pundit
circuit. The Village Voice's Joy Press profiles Zakaria, hooked on his just-launched weekly PBS news show, Foreign Exchange With Fareed Zakaria (set your DVRs - Saturdays at 10 a.m. on WNET!). Apparently it's really good, featuring lively discussion and lots of non-American guests who bring a different perspective; plus guest Natalie Portman who was keen to chat about microfinancing in the Third World (but Fareed, can we can the snap judgments? Says Press: "Zakaria agreed only on the condition that if she gave a vacuous interview, he could kill it." Dude. She wanted to talk about microfinancing in the Third World. Never mind that she went to your alma mater (well, grad school, but otherwise... Boola boola!). A little respect, please. And you could be a tad more abashed about being mistaken: "It turned out she really knew her stuff, and it's an important issue that's not at all sexy"). Well, duh! As you well know, Fareed, it is possible to have intellectual gravitas and still be very, very sexy. Grrrr. Rock your body now!