ram it baby, ram it.

April 22: General Patraeus spoke to a crowd of the New York intelligensia (obviously I was crashing) at the 92nd Street Y.

(the antiwar protestors who pooled outside were pleasantly old and polite, which made them even more effective)

to call this an interview would be laughable. to call this a dialogue would be ridiculous. make no mistake, there was an “interviewer” who asked “questions”, but this interviewer was the interrogation equivalent of a thirteen year-old drama-kid tortuously forced to play pitcher in a middle school gym class game of kick ball (which is an excellent sport btw).

so here’s how it went. the said “interviewer” would lob a big old softy to the General that had to do with one of the countries (Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan) and the said General would pontificate about the country and their strategy there for ten minutes at least. no follow-ups, no counter-questioning, just acceptance and movement on to the next question that opened to the door to the next country on Patreaus’ list.

Hey Administration, you want anti-war liberals like me to have a real listen about this war? Then don’t wheel the big boy out (who is an impressive guy btw) to do a one-sided “interview” about one of the, if not the, biggest issues on our country’s plate in a manner that was creepily reminiscent of Bush-era communication techniques.