Rather's Saddam Interview Upsets Warmongers
The highlight of last week was Dan Rather's interview with Saddam Hussein, followed closely by the hysteria of many decrying the interview as Iraqi propaganda and Rather as a tool of a dictator. Americans have lost their understanding of a free press if they don't realize the valuable service Mr. Rather rendered.
Saddam Hussein is a Stalin in the making, unformed and lacking in superpower status, but a vicious piece of work all the same. The interview showed that clearly, from the evasive answers to the threats to the body language. A thinking public could not have missed the evil dripping from the TV screen.
Yet, there were the whiners (a growing minority in America) complaining that by giving the Iraqi strongman airtime, Rather was serving Iraqi interests. They, of course, were not taken in, but they worried that less sophisticated viewers might be.
Some evidence that anyone switched to a pro-Saddam perspective would make their case, but there doesn't seem to be any. Western bourgeois democracy seems to be able to handle alternative arguements just fine. One wonders if the whiners understand that they are arguing the same case Saddam makes on Radio Baghdad -- opposition is treason.