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NYT: Pompeo Called Me a 'Liar.' That's Not What Bothers Me.
NYT Op-ed by Mary Louise Kelly
Journalists are supposed to ask tough questions, then share the answers — or lack thereof — with the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/mike-pompeo-kelly-interview.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Excerpt:
Another question I was curious to hear Secretary Pompeo answer was how the Trump administration plans to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, should it decide to do so, given that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapons capability than when President Trump took office.
Here’s the relevant portion of the interview:
KELLY: How do you stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?
POMPEO: We’ll stop them.
KELLY: How? Sanctions?
POMPEO: We’ll stop them.
He did not offer specifics. Nor did he elaborate, when pressed on how to square his resolve with what Mr. Zarif had just told me — that all limits on Iran’s centrifuge program have been suspended.
“Yeah,” Mr. Pompeo said. “He’s blustering.”
Do you have evidence that he’s blustering? He did not directly answer. (In fairness, I could hardly expect him to telegraph what intelligence the United States may possess on the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions.)
I write about all this now to refocus attention on the substance of the interviews, which has been overshadowed by Mr. Pompeo’s subsequently swearing at me, calling me a liar and challenging me to find Ukraine on an unmarked map.
For the record, I did. That’s not the point. The point is that recently the risk of miscalculation — of two old adversaries misreading each other and accidentally escalating into armed confrontation — has felt very real. It occurs to me that swapping insults through interviews with journalists such as me might, terrifyingly, be as close as the top diplomats of the United States and Iran came to communicating this month.
There is a reason that freedom of the press is enshrined in the Constitution. There is a reason it matters that people in positions of power — people charged with steering the foreign policy of entire nations — be held to account. The stakes are too high for their impulses and decisions not to be examined in as thoughtful and rigorous an interview as is possible.
Journalists don’t sit down with senior government officials in the service of scoring political points. We do it in the service of asking tough questions, on behalf of our fellow citizens. And then sharing the answers — or lack thereof — with the world.
Here’s the relevant portion of the interview:
KELLY: How do you stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?
POMPEO: We’ll stop them.
KELLY: How? Sanctions?
POMPEO: We’ll stop them.
He did not offer specifics. Nor did he elaborate, when pressed on how to square his resolve with what Mr. Zarif had just told me — that all limits on Iran’s centrifuge program have been suspended.
“Yeah,” Mr. Pompeo said. “He’s blustering.”
Do you have evidence that he’s blustering? He did not directly answer. (In fairness, I could hardly expect him to telegraph what intelligence the United States may possess on the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions.)
I write about all this now to refocus attention on the substance of the interviews, which has been overshadowed by Mr. Pompeo’s subsequently swearing at me, calling me a liar and challenging me to find Ukraine on an unmarked map.
For the record, I did. That’s not the point. The point is that recently the risk of miscalculation — of two old adversaries misreading each other and accidentally escalating into armed confrontation — has felt very real. It occurs to me that swapping insults through interviews with journalists such as me might, terrifyingly, be as close as the top diplomats of the United States and Iran came to communicating this month.
There is a reason that freedom of the press is enshrined in the Constitution. There is a reason it matters that people in positions of power — people charged with steering the foreign policy of entire nations — be held to account. The stakes are too high for their impulses and decisions not to be examined in as thoughtful and rigorous an interview as is possible.
Journalists don’t sit down with senior government officials in the service of scoring political points. We do it in the service of asking tough questions, on behalf of our fellow citizens. And then sharing the answers — or lack thereof — with the world.
31 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
It occurs to me that swapping insults through interviews with journalists such as me might, terrifyingly, be as close as the top diplomats of the United States and Iran came to communicating this month.
And I thought to myself then how my mind is just getting paranoid....
Or are we right?
He’s lucky she didn’t bruise them too much. She’s was just being a true journalist, and the poor Trumpy wimp couldn’t take it. So he reverting to nasty mansplaining.
Disgusting 
