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Sam Buchanan's weblog.

Jon Stewart interviews… Madeleine Albright?

June 05, 2003

I have no idea how it happened, but somehow The Daily Show managed to get former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to appear for an interview with Jon Stewart.

Confession: I love Jon Stewart's interviews. He's no Terry Gross, no, but given the constraints he works with (just a few minutes on the show, the fact that the show is first and foremost a comedy), he can pull off some really interesting interviews.

The Albright interview was good, albeit hampered by Stewart's need/desire to cover a whole lot more than is possible in the short time frame their format allows:

• Albright's recent study that shows how profoundly the world hates and fears the US (and, she made sure to point out, that the US isn't too fond of the rest of the world, either). This should be no surprise to anyone who's barely conscious. An interesting note is how much the situation has worsened in the past two years (again, little surprise). Stewart asked
• Albright discussed her experiences in North Korea, and although she did not outright criticize the Bush administration, I got a real sense of how badly things were bungled things by not picking up where she'd left off. As she explained, North Korean leaders were under the impression they were dealing with the United States, so when the newly elected Bush administration didn't really do anything, it was confusing and damaging. Scary.

Granted, Madeleine Albright can hardly be speaking from an unbiased perspective, but I credit her for being reasonable and intelligent. Except that she chose to appear on a fake news show, of course. :)