President Obama should be glad he’s not the top guy Down Under, where the press has few qualms about throwing hard rhetorical punches.
Take, for example, this rapid-fire flurry aimed recently at Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott by Australian Broadcasting Corporation anchor Leigh Sales:
“Prime Minister, you’ve been a student of politics all your life. Political history would suggest you cannot recover from such a significant vote of no confidence from your own side. Your disapproval rating in the news poll that was out today was 68 percent — clearly the public is not buying what you’re saying.”
Later in the same sit-down interview Sunday, Sales asked Abbott: “Why have you given Australia a government with the training wheels on? We’ve had the Tony Abbott in opposition: the guy who promised no more chaos; the adults back in charge; no excuses; no broken promises. Then there’s the Tony Abbott that we’ve had so far in government, with the surprise policies, and the broken promises, and the Captain’s Picks. Now you’re offering us a third Tony Abbott, one who’s going to change. Who are you?”
After the conservative Australian prime minster offered a predictably political and noncommittal answer, Sales kept at it, asking him: “It is interesting that you’re not able to answer the question to me. Who are you? What do you stand for? Which Tony Abbott are you?”
Sales’ rough treatment of Australia’s most visible public figure was not unusual, as seen by anchor Karl Stefanovic of Australia’s Today show and multiple talk show grillings in recent months.
In contrast, a “lavish” Obama interview released this week by Vox left Politico’s Jack Shafer joking that he had “seen subtler Scientology recruitment films.”
Shafer’s comment came in an article titled “All the President’s Explainers.”
“Again and again, they serve him softball — no, make that Nerf ball — questions and then insert infographics and footnotes that help advance White House positions. Vox has lavished such spectacular production values on the video version of the Obama interview — swirling graphics and illustrations, background music (background music!?), aggressive editing, multiple camera angles — that the clips end up looking and sounding like extended commercials for the Obama-in-2016 campaign,” he wrote.
To be fair to Vox, Shafer said, that site was not alone in giving the president the kid-glove treatment. It’s the nature of such interviews.
“Presidents, after all, are playing on their home courts, where they set the rules and control the shot clock. A president is too well-briefed by his staff to be caught off guard by ingenious questions. No president will allow news to be made in an interview unless he wants to make news,” he said.
