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Deja vu — Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Judith Apter Klinghoffer

MIKE WALLACE , LOVER OF ME DICTATORS

Mike Wallace has yet to meet a dictator he does not like.

Let's start with the butcher of Hama, Haffez al Assad - Wallace characterized the brutal Syrian as "cool, strong, austere and independent" whose "unrelenting aim is to retrieve the rich farmland of the Golan taken from him by the Israelis."

When Larry King asked what he thinks of Palestinian society destroyer, Yasser Arafat, Wallace said: You know something, Larry, I came to ? I came to admire Arafat beginning back in 1977 in Egypt and then in Lebanon on a couple of occasions, and then went to Tunis with him and then even to Gaza. As far as ? and then finally Ramallah, I guess, a month or six weeks ago. He has made mistakes along the way as all of us do...."

He describes Ahmadinejad as "an impressive fellow, this guy. He really is. He's obviously smart as hell. . . . You'll find him an interesting man . . . I expected more of a firebrand. . . . He comes across as more rational than I had expected."

Here are my favorite pearls from his interview with the Iranian Hitler wannabe

"I'm a journalist. I am a journalist."
"I couldn't be happier for the privilege of sitting down with the president of Iran.
"Come on. Come on. You're perfectly capable of handling that question if you have the courage to answer it."
"Why are they worried about your jacket? I think you look just fine."

What can I say, he should have gotten a Pulizer. David Harris writes, it was a Knockout.

Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 11:13 PM | Comments (0) | Return

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