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The Bogus Interviews of Alexis Debat (UPDATED)

By Larry Johnson on September 19, 2007 at 5:39 PM in Current Affairs

Thank you Mr. Schwifty, who blogs at http://schwifty.blogspot.com/, for the links to the bogus Alexis Debat interviews. Here are the links and you can decide for yourself. At a minimum this is sloppiness that is inexcusable by someone claiming to be an expert. This was not supposed to be a creative writing class.

Obama interview in French.

Interview with Ayad Allawi

Interview with Michael Bloomberg.

Bill Gates interview.

All French speakers are welcome to comment (we need some translation help here). Did Debat make this up or use press clips to cobble this together? Either way it is bad form and bad journalism.

Additional interviews [UPDATE at 4:10 ET - MORE BELOW]:

Giuliani

Moubarak:

Paul Bremer (story not interview):

Kofi Annan:

Musharraf:

Bill Clinton:

Hillary Clinton (only a summary)

Colin Powell:

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[UPDATE at 4:10 ET - MORE BELOW]

Pelosi:

a partial list of names:

Schwarzenegger: (I am choking on coffee now)

William Kristol: (this will be entertaining I imagine)

Donald de Marino: (?)

Paul Bremer full Interview:

Greenspan:

Hillary Clinton (summary only):

  • http://schwifty.blogspot.com/ schwifty

    If only it were in German.. Debat “interviewed” a ton of people, let me know if there are any specific requests.

  • brat

    My French is woefully rusty, but the Obama interview is really weird. Obama is largely about nuance, with a few clear zingers thrown in (on the war generally). But throughout this supposed interview, he’s making STRONG statements. Of course, Debat could claim that there are inexact French equivalents to what Obama said.

    But I don’t think so.

  • anon

    Doesn’t ABC do any due diligence background checking on its “experts” anymore?

    I think I’ll start billing myself as an “expert” on the stock market and start recommending that everyone invest in CDOs, fast. AAA-rated, you know!

  • Retired

    Boy, Arnold’s French is really good! Oh, you mean the interview was in English and then translated into French? Oh, well, that must explain the overly preening superlatives that Gates used when describing Condi Rice. Gates never paid those types of compliments in English to anyone in his life. Except, perhaps, to himself (inside joke to Larry, sorry, coudn’t resist).

  • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

    Google can translate. Has anyone tried doing a google search for the articles? Because Google often offers a choice to read the article in English or see the translation. [Google's translations can be hilarious sometimes!] Alta Vista’s Babelfish can translate a sentence or paragraph at a time.

    I spoke French as a kid, and studied it. You’d think I’d be able to read it beyond French 101!? Mais je comprende et parle tres peu. Je suis desolee.

  • http://schwifty.blogspot.com/ schwifty

    Larry, I tried to post the translations here but the commenting field keeps mangling it all for some reason. They’re in your inbox.

  • http://schwifty.blogspot.com/ schwifty

    All of the google translation links can be found here until then, apologies for the plug.

  • KC

    What I find to be a little strange here is that in the Obama interview, which supposedly took place in March of 2007 (1), he has Senator Obama saying something that is very similar to a statement that Obama had made in February, 2007 (2). However, this statement caused such an uproar that, by February 13th, Obama had already apologized for this remark (3).

    Seems highly unlikely that Obama would then, just a few weeks later, turned around and make that same statement again.
    .
    (excerpt from the Barack Obama interview):
    “A. D. – Voilà à présent plus de quatre ans que les États-Unis guerroient en Irak. Qu’est-ce que ce constat évoque pour vous?

    B. O. – De la tristesse. Nous avons gaspillé des milliers de vies humaines et des centaines de milliards de dollars dans ce qui s’est révélé une aventure sans fondements, sans raison et sans fin.”

    (Basic translation):
    A.D. says that the U.S. has been at war in Iraq now for more than 4 years, and then he asks Obama how that has affected him.

    Obama replied that it was sad, and goes on to say that we have wasted thousands of human lives and hundreds of billion of dollars in something that has proved itself to be a baseless endeavor, without reason and without end.
    .

    (1) “…For a payment of $500, Debat said, Sherman provided a transcript of an interview, featuring Debat’s questions, that he claimed was conducted in March.”
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091202333_2.html
    .

    (2) Barack Obama, February 11, 2007, while speaking at a campaign rally in Iowa:
    “We now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted”
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/11/AR2007021100669.html
    .

    (3) Obama Apologizes for Saying Troops’ Lives ‘Wasted’, Feb.13, 2007
    “Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., entered the race for the White House over the weekend and is immediately feeling the hot spotlight of scrutiny that accompanies a presidential campaign. Obama has twice apologized since implying that U.S. troops had died in vain…”
    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2872135&page=1