Scott Pelley, the go-to guy on 60 Minutes, did the sit down with Ahmadinejad.
This Sunday, Pelley has another high profile interview -- Bruce Springsteen.
For Ahmadinejad, his few minutes with Pelley in the 60 Minutes sun served as an opportunity for him to try to get the American people to buy the notion that he's really a "Mr. Nice Guy" rather than a self-absorbed, Israel-hating, nuke-obsessed, liar madman.
For Springsteen, the interview is part of a media blitz as well. However, unlike Ahmadinejad, his interview isn't only about winning converts or defending his cause. It is also about making money.
Springsteen is hawking his latest release, Magic.
From Drudge:
BRUCE UNDER FIRE? ROCKER SPRINGSTEEN CLAIMS UNNAMED CRITICS CALLING HIM 'UNPATRIOTIC'; SAYS U.S. COURSE OVER LAST 6 YEARS 'ANTI-AMERICAN'
Thu Sept 20 2007 16:11:22 ET
Rocker Bruce Springsteen answers critics who call his anti-war sentiments unpatriotic by saying the real sin against patriotism is saying nothing while your country is being harmed. Springsteen discusses this and other topics, including why he's still writing songs and performing, in an interview with Scott Pelley to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Oct. 7 (7:30-9:00 PM, ET, 7:00-9:00 PM, PT) on the CBS Television Network.
When reminded that his anti-war views, prominent on his new album, "Magic," will cause people to say he is unpatriotic -- as his critic have charged before -- Springsteen says "That's just the language of the day... the modus operandi for anybody who doesn't like somebody... criticizing where we've been or where we're going," he tells Pelley. "I believe every citizen has a stake in the course, direction of their country. That's why we vote... It's unpatriotic at any given moment to sit back and let things pass that are damaging to some place that you love so dearly and that has given me so much," says the 58-year-old musician.
In the interview, Springsteen points out the direction in which the U.S. is going, by his estimation. "I think we've seen things happen over the past six years that I don't think anybody ever thought they'd ever see in the United States," says Springsteen. "When people think of the Unites States' identity, they don't think of torture. They don't think of illegal wiretapping. They don't think of voter suppression," he tells Pelley. "They don't think of no habeas corpus," he says, referring to the people being held by the U.S. government in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Those are things that are anti-American," Springsteen says. "There's been a whole series of things that... I never thought I'd ever see in America," he tells Pelley.
Now, the story is up on the CBS 60 Minutes Web site, including a 51 second video tease.
It appears that Springsteen reiterates the little speech he used during his concert performance on Today, September 28.
When introducing a new song, "Livin' in the Future," he said:
This is a song called "Livin' in the Future" but it's really about what's happening now, right now. It's kind of about how... the things that we love about America - cheeseburgers, french fries, the Yankees battlin' Boston, the Bill of Rights, V-twin motorcyles, Tim Russert's haircut, transfat, and the Jersey shore. We love all those things, and that the way the women folk love on Matt Lauer. That's right.
But over the past 6 years we've had to add to the American picture rendition, illegal wiretapping, voter suppression, no habeas corpus, to the neglect of our great city of New Orleans and her people, an attack on the Constitution, and the loss of our best young men and women in a tragic war. This is a song about things that shouldn't happen here happening here. And so right now we plan to do something about it. We plan to sing about it. I know it's early, but it's late. So come and join us.
Notice that he uses much of the same phrasing in the 60 Minutes interview, not the Matt Lauer or Tim Russert shtick, but the hot button issue stuff.
I think it's sort of funny for Springsteen to claim that America during the George W. Bush era is experiencing unprecedented attacks on civil rights.
He tells Pelley: "I think we've seen things happen over the past six years that I don't think anybody ever thought they'd ever see in the United States."
He cites "no habeas corpus."
Someone should give Springsteen a history lesson. The writ of habeas corpus was suspended by President Abraham Lincoln.
During World War II, habeas corpus was tossed out while liberal saint President Franklin Roosevelt was in office.
FDR ordered tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans and resident aliens, including children, into internment camps.
Read FDR's Executive Order 9066.
Springsteen complains about torture. He should talk to his boy Bill Clinton about torture. Bill admits that there might be instances when torture has its place.
As a matter of fact, Bill was just discussing the matter of torture with Tim Russert only last weekend on Meet the Press.
Russert showed a clip from Bill Clinton's appearance on MTP, September 24, 2006.
MR. CLINTON: Every one of us can imagine the following scenario: We get lucky, we get the number three guy in al-Qaeda, and we know there’s a big bomb going off in America in three days, and we know this guy knows where it is, know we have the right and the responsibility to beat it out of him.
They could set up a law where the president could make a finding or could guarantee a pardon or could guarantee the submission of that sort of thing post-facto to the intelligence court just like we do now with the wiretaps.
In response, Clinton goes on and on about the fictional Jack Bauer and 24, trying to back step, yet coming back to the reality of the need to make exceptions when it comes to torture.
CLINTON: You know, there’s a one in a million chance that you might be alone somewhere, and you’re Jack Bauer on “24.” That’s the Jack Bauer example, right? It happens every season with Jack Bauer, but to—in the real world it doesn’t happen very much. If you have a policy which legitimizes this, it’s a slippery slope and you get in the kind of trouble we’ve been in here with Abu Ghraib, with Guantanamo, with lots of other examples.
And I’m not even sure what I said is right now. I think what happens is the honest truth is that Tim Russert, Bill Clinton, people filming this show, if we were the Jack Bauer person and it was six hours to the bomb or whatever, you don’t know what you would do, and you have to—but I think what our policy ought to be is to be uncompromisingly opposed to terror—I mean to torture, and that if you’re the Jack Bauer person, you’ll do whatever you do and you should be prepared to take the consequences. And I think the consequences will be imposed based on what turns out to be the truth. I think there are a lot of areas in life where you don’t.
When Springsteen talks about voter suppression, I wonder if he's thinking about what Democrats did to keep Republican voters from the polls in Wisconsin.
Read more here.
What's the point of all this? I'm illustrating that Springsteen is spewing anti-Bush propaganda while pushing an incomplete reality. He's being dishonest in terms of the nation's history and mischaracterizing the Bush administration.
I have difficulty listening to Springsteen talk about his "critics" and the charges that he's unpatriotic. Actually, I think he's proud, wearing the criticism as a badge of honor.
I think Columbia and Sony BMG see that supposed victim status as an opportunity to boost his sales -- True patriot Springsteen in the role of freedom fighter, being the voice of the downtrodden.
Particularly disturbing to me is when he talks about how Bush has trampled on the Bill of Rights, tossed out the Constitution, and basically stripped America of its identity as a beacon of freedom in the world.
The Lefties, Springsteen included, consider themselves to be the true champions of liberty and free speech.
BS.
I know the truth.
Springsteen's official Web site used to have a forum for discussions. It was shut down close to two years ago.
In addition to talk about music and concerts, there was a forum to discuss politics.
As is typical with the supposed anonymity of the Internet, it was often really ugly and abusive, sometimes shockingly. Conservative participants were routinely harassed. There were orchestrated efforts to silence their voices.
I don't know if Springsteen knew what sort of trash was on his site; but given the fact that the utterly uncivil exchanges were taking place on his forum under his name, it certainly stood as a very poor reflection on him.
Springsteen may have been clueless, but Sony BMG was not.
How did Sony BMG respond to the abuses?
With even more violations of policy, and, ultimately, INEFFECTUAL threats and intimidation.
In my opinion, that was kind of "anti-American," the stuff Springsteen supposedly abhors.
Keep that in mind if you watch the 60 Minutes interview with Bruce Springsteen, the champion of the Bill of Rights and civil liberties, the concerned patriot.
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