On Dec 5, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Michael McIntyre wrote:
> But
> think of the stories she follows like the Maher Arar story (when no
> one else does), throw in having been beaten half to death in East
> Timor, and the grueling round of doing the show day after day while
> simultaneously logging untold travel miles etc. - it all makes the
> woman pretty much a national treasure in my book.
There's no doubting her tenacity, courage, and dedication. But she's really not all that familiar with issues or institutions - the sort of thing you need to know in political debate. Polemic and muckraking are her thing, as well as an almost pornographic interest in torture and violence. But she has a big staff, so she's not doing everything on her own. Part of the problem is diffusion of attention. I saw her on a panel once where she spent the entire time she wasn't talking on her Blackberry. She doesn't listen to people as she interviews them - she's reading something, or planning the next segment - or, in one case, taking instruction on how to a work a laptop.
Doug