Iran Interview: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Runs Circles Around ABC News' Stephanopoulos
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 16:30
Another forum in New York for President Ahmadinejad to put out his talking points --- "Show me one dictatorship in the world that has not been supported by the United States government or some European governments" --- while knocking back any thought of violations of political, civil, and legal rights after his disputed 2009 re-election: "Don’t you distinguish between those protestors who have something to say and who have some demands, and those who set buildings on fire?"
Like NBC News' Ann Curry in Tehran a week ago, ABC News' George Stephanopoulos gets his prize in the opening exchange with the prospect of a release of the US hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer --- this time, it actually came true in the following 24 hours --- and then the rest of the interview is a broadcast wasteland.
Stephanopoulos is ill-prepared to follow up on some questions, such as the repression in Iran, and unable to to catch up with an evasive Ahmadinejad on others, such as Syria. While for once, this is an interview that doesn't put a priority on the nuclear issue, Stephanopoulos cannot even get the Iranian President to respond meaningfully on the US call for military communications with Tehran to avoid an accidental conflict --- Ahmadinejad shows his interviewer up, "You mean the US is in a Cold War with Iran? Is that what you mean?"
And there is even a gift tied with a bow for Ahmadinejad with Stephanopoulos' presentation of foreign-supported "regime change": "The Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said earlier this year that it’s just a matter of time before this revolution hits Iran. What did you make of that?"
THE INTERVIEW
STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, thank you for joining us again. I want to begin with a topic that many Americans are interested [in], of course, the Americans, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer. Last week you raised a lot of hopes here in the United States saying they would be released in a couple of days as a humanitarian gesture. Many expected them to come back here with you. Yet they’re still imprisoned in Iran. Why?