Well, well, well! Old Danny boy landed himself a big interview with Saddam Hussein.

Did you catch the CBS News promo?

Big Voice: “ Dan Rather: The only man that Saddam Hussein trusts to tell his story.”

What a distorted sense of reality. Is CBS nuts? Of course, it is true that Saddam granted Dan Rather an audience because of the original interview Rather did with Saddam back in 1990. I guess they’re just good buddies. I know I can’t wait to hear Saddam challenge George Bush to a debate. Or how about denying that he has ever had any weapons of mass destruction even though his own scientist signed affidavits at the end of the Persian Gulf War detailing their chemical and biological efforts. Or, how about him saying that he has no intention of destroying those El Shamout missiles, which are in violation of at least a half dozen United Nations resolutions. Just an update, now his vice president says Saddam really didn’t mean they wouldn’t destroy them; it was just a figure of speech.

Seriously, this whole business of getting the big interview with dictators has always been the devil’s canyon for journalists. You want the interview but getting it puts you so close to the canyon’s edge you can end up slipping in so quickly and so deeply no rope is long enough or strong enough to rescue you.

Rather will justify the interview because he says it has value in showing you the real Saddam Hussein. We will see how much of the interview makes it past Iraqi sensors and translators. He will argue it is important for the American people to see and hear Saddam’s answers to those tough questions like why did you gas those poor Kurdish refugees in the North? Maybe you should ask him why he’s used millions of dollars of oil money to build his 30-plus palaces while last year more than one million children starved to death. Here’s one more. Is it true that you ordered the public execution of 35 political dissidents and dragged their wives and children out in the streets and forced them to watch as you slit their throats, filled their bodies with bullets and then burned their bodies on crosses in a public square?

I’m not suggesting Rather is selling out or is trying to help Saddam Hussein win public approval. From his perspective as a journalist this is the gold at the end of the rainbow. And, if you go to any journalism class and ask students: “If you could interview just one person in history who would it be?” you’ll get a fifty-fifty split between Jesus and Adolph Hitler. We are fascinated with power and those that use and abuse it.

But Dan and Peter and Tom all know that even a three-hour interview with a dictator, a brutal one at that, doesn’t paint the real picture. Dan is Saddam’s guest. Hello? There are guns everywhere. Simply by being there with camera’s rolling Rather is adding to the credibility of Saddam. And Saddam is getting three hours of prime time to play to his audience, to drum up sympathy from the millions of protestors who, he tells Rather in the interview, are the true voice of Americans. Like it or not, it now becomes the Kennedy and Nixon debates all over again. Who do you think looks better on the air? Did you notice Saddam didn’t sweat through the entire interview? Why doesn’t George Bush sit down and talk with Dan for three hours?

What’s truly sad and disturbing is the end result of these kinds of bad guy interviews. Yes, we do learn more about these people! But unfortunately, many of the folks who watch TV forget to engage their brains. They forget context. They depend on the reporter or the anchor or the commentator to make decision for them. That’s not the way it is supposed to work.

Remember good ol’, mass murdered Teddy Bundy? He didn’t seem like such a bad guy when Dr. James Dobson interviewed him in his death row cell? Certainly, you couldn’t object to your daughter spending a few quality moments with this quite, soft spoken, intelligent but misunderstood young man?

Then, there was the original Barbara Walters interview with Fidel Castro? After the interview researchers were able to measure a more favorable response to Castro attributed in great part to that interview. As my old journalism professor and the founder of the Radio and Television News Directors Association told me, television exposure, even bad exposure can do nothing but improve the image of the hated. We’ve invited them into our living rooms on TV. That’s not a place we generally entertain our enemies. By having them there in our comfortable surroundings their acts are removed from their personalities. What we get is distortion despite our efforts to focus in on the truth.

The same thing will happen with Saddam and Dan Rather. Some viewers will start feeling sorry for Saddam or they’ll notice how calm and well dressed he is. Regardless of the facts of Saddam’s atrocities committed on his own people, they will start feeling a little bit warm and fuzzy. Old Uncle Saddam isn’t such a bad guy after all. I mean if he can sit down for three hours and chat with our man Dan, than he must be a reasonable leader. We just don’t see things from his perspective. He’s not lying about his known weapons it’s just a matter of interpretation. Can’t we just all get along together?

So, should Dan have turned down Saddam’s request for an interview? No. As much as it galls me to give evil men a speck of TV time, I have to believe that intelligent people can see through the smoke and mirrors. In a free society, we give all people the opportunity to view all the sides of an argument no matter how convoluted or bizarre those arguments appear. We make not like Dan, but he isn’t the enemy. The focus must remain on Saddam’s actions and not his words, which, as we all know, have a history of being worthless.

Al Ruechel, Copyright 2003, All Rights Reserved

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