Click here to watch Rachel Maddow’s interview of former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Or don’t. I don’t care. The point is that this so rare it ought to be on the front page of the newspaper, along with the California fires (which tend to happen on a more predictable fashion). An American journalist actually confronted an American government official, admittedly one who is out of power, but nonetheless there was a confrontation. Tim Russert spun in his grave.
(Someone please advise – how do you embed an NBC video?)
Maddow says during the interview that it was very obvious that Iraq was a “foregone conclusion”, and that dumping it now on the “spies”for giving them bad information disingenuous.
Ridge, of course, was grateful for her forthrightness, and will never go near the show again. In addition, Maddow’s continuing problem of getting government officials and conservatives on the show will only get worse. They don’t want confrontation, they don’t want hard questions. And the press obliges with distressing servitude.
MSNBC’s lineup of Olbermann, Maddow, and the blowhard Ed Schultz is an interesting contradiction in my scenario where media only presents us with right wingers and centrists (who often are presented as “liberals”), and no one from the left. Olbermann has found a niche and a voice, but I doubt his credentials. Shultz has come around lately, becoming more a progressive than an Obama-ite (on health care,anyway), and that is refreshing. Maddow is a genuine progressive, and has an hour of airtime to herself five days a week.
I’ve got to think about that. Our right wing media has let one slip through, much in the way that the Wall Street Journal allows Tom Frank 700 words each week. I’ll get back to you after I re-frame.
In the meantime, contrast the Maddow/Ridge interview with one of Dick Cheney by Chris Wallace. The only surprise there was that Wallace’s head appears on screen now and then, and that he wasn’t yelling out questions from below camera line as he went about his real business.
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Piece of Mindful 
Ridge clearly tried to walk back his writing about the political override of security alert levels in the days before the election. What he said last night is not what he wrote. Maddow applied pressure, but missed an opportunity, I think, to ask a followup question based on her interview: What evidence do you have now, you didn’t have then, that convinced you to do a 180 in direct contradiction to perhaps the strongest statement in your book? Did he get a call from Cheney last night? Was it the anthrax killer? It is always the why question that gets away.
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I’ll take what I can get. We had a confrontation. A journalist challenged an ex-public official, basically called him a liar.
But you’re right that she missed a big point, but as Thom Hartmann often says, he doesn’t always ask the right questions, but says his listeners are not stupid and don’t need everything spelled out for them.
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Actually your comment kind of reminds me of the guy who had a dog that could play chess. “Yeah,” he said, “but he’s not very good at it. I beat him four times out of five.”
The larger point is that an American journalist challenged someone (who was) in power.
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Right on!
I only said that because I’ve been really enjoying Maddow lately, and notice she gets very worked up over her notes — a good thing. But like a good courtroom lawyer, listening to the answer to a tough question, sometimes leads to checkmate on the next move. She has nailed lesser figures without listening carefully to their answers. I enjoy Moyers, but lately I think she’s the best journalist working tv today.
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