Christiane Amanpour interviewed former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famous for her October 2000 meeting with North Korean dictator Kim "He’s Not a Nut" Jong Il, as part of her "Notes from North Korea" program, which aired on Saturday and Sunday evenings. During the segment, the CNN senior international correspondent failed to note how her husband, James Rubin, worked as spokesman and Assistant Secretary for State for Albright from 1997 until May 2000. Albright emphasized how "it's possible to have verifiable agreements" with the North Korean regime and how "negotiations need to be pursued actively." The Clinton administration that she worked for conducted negotiations with the communist dictatorship during the 1990s and signed a nuclear agreement with them, which the North Korean government violated by conducting a secret uranium enrichment program. So much for "verifiable agreements."
Amanpour did call the North Korean regime "a police state" and a "dictatorship" during her special, but she downplayed the communist government’s responsibility for the deaths of millions of North Koreans during a famine in the 1990s. [audio available here]
Albright, concerning her visit to North Korea, first noted during the interview that she and the dictator "are the same height" and that "I had on high heels and then I looked over and so did he." Amanpour then asked, "Did you have real political talks with him?" The former Clinton administration official answered, "We did and not only political, Christiane, but technical."
During the interview segment, which began 34 minutes in the hour-long program, Amanpour ran footage from Albright’s visit, showing the then-Secretary of State posing, walking, and meeting with the North Korean dictator, as well as being treated to one of the country’s "legendary mass dances" ["Airplane!" director David Zucker famously spoofed Albright's visit in a 2006 political ad]
At one point, Amanpour asked about the so-called "Dear Leader:" "What was he like as a person to talk to?" Albright played up the recluse’s love for American culture: "What is interesting is his interest in the U.S. He was interested in American basketball, and he certainly knew all about the movies and who had gotten Oscars." Amanpour then noted, "Albright says that, with his keen interest in all things American, it's not surprising that Kim Jong Il would have chosen the New York Philharmonic for this cultural overture. Musical events are important in North Korea. Not just for their entertainment value, but because of the political message they convey."
Earlier, during the first segment of her special, Amanpour detailed her visit to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and quipped that "the entire city feels like a movie set, designed in part for foreign consumption. North Korea is a police state, a dictatorship. Its economy is in collapse. And in the 1990s, widespread famine killed millions of people. But this is not the face the government wants to project." Later, during a feature on one of the musicians of the New York Philharmonic who is ethnically-Korean, Amanpour gave more of a clue on the cause of the famine. "...Lisa [Kim, a violinist] was born, and raised on the stories her father told her about a brutal North Korean dictator whose regime starved and tortured its own people." During both segments, footage of North Korean children dying of starvation ran briefly. But no further explanation is given.
The full transcript of Christiane Amanpour’s interview of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: We're about the same height. I knew that I had on high heels and then I looked over and so did he.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR (voice-over): Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is the highest-ranking U.S. official to ever meet Kim Jong Il. It happened in October, 2000 in the capital Pyongyang.
AMANPOUR (on-camera): Did you have real political talks with him?
ALBRIGHT: We did and not only political, Christiane, but technical.
AMANPOUR: Do you think it will be possible to have some kind of a deal, a peace deal, a normalization deal with him as the head of North Korea?
ALBRIGHT: I think it's possible to have verifiable agreements with them, and I think that the negotiations need to be pursued actively.
AMANPOUR: What was he like as a person to talk to?
ALBRIGHT: What is interesting is his interest in the U.S. He was interested in American basketball, and he certainly knew all about the movies and who had gotten Oscars.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Albright says that, with his keen interest in all things American, it's not surprising that Kim Jong Il would have chosen the New York Philharmonic for this cultural overture. Musical events are important in North Korea. Not just for their entertainment value, but because of the political message they convey. Kim Jong Il treated Albright to a command performance of one of their legendary mass dances.
ALBRIGHT: They were all dancing in these incredible costumes, and 100,000 gymnasts and people in perfect synchronization as only a dictator can make 100,000 people dance in step.
—Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.















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We are going to go down this road again!
May 12, 2008 - 13:57 ET by upcountrywaterAllbright
The POPE says, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!
IranianUranium<sleep>New/Infrastructure/repair?/ROFLMAO
Pathetic...
May 12, 2008 - 14:13 ET by dronetekI saw this piece the other night and couldnt stop laughing after Amanpour said something to the effect of, "I was the only reporter they would let in". She made it sound and look like it was because of her high quality stature. Its both disturbing and hilarious that she doesnt realize its because shes a useful idiot.
Matthew. Amanpour pulled another stunt over electricity in ..
May 12, 2008 - 15:10 ET by Gary HallMatthew. Good catch. I also noticed a couple of other spins by Amanpour. In her interview with the N. Korean pianist (defected later to the south) who was caught and punished for playing a few jazz riffs, she made a special effort to present:
Color me confused; somehow, I've always considered complete and total supression of any independent artisitc expression by a dictator to be a "political" problem. Why the effort, Ms. Amanpour?
But the segment that really caught my attention (this one has been done several times by the media - they just can't resist). The special presentation, while showcasing two former Clinton officials, Albright and William Perry, touched on the nuclear program which North Korea carried out successfully in violation of the Clinton agreements with the dictatorship, but she asked no questions of them on that failure. Then Christiane Amanpour pulled perpetrated another stunt as a follow up to that blunder. It was over electrical power generation. (my bold):
Flashed across the screen was that satellite shot of the darkness and cold which she described. The impression left with the viewer, naturally enough, that somehow this is all the US's fault for not providing fuel to the North Koreans - oh might we be led to believe, perhaps even Bush's fault:
Oh, for the record, here is how North Korea looked in the October of 2000, North Korea in the dark (the very bright light in the center is Seoul - just south of the border - the dark to north is North Korea):
It got much worse during the Clinton era:
It never ceases to amaze me the effect a governor in Texas can have on the world.
"Pouring" Anti-Americanism The "Amanpour" Way
May 12, 2008 - 16:04 ET by RMRI saw that program. As I interepreted it. It was meant to show "us westerners" that the North Korean regime is not as bad as we believe them to be.
By including Albright's interview. Christiane was making the point that if not for George Bush's "mean" policy towards North Korea, the "loving" North Korean regime would have embraced Albright's and Carter's policy, and all would be right with the world. After all, only someone as "evil" as George Bush could so viciously attack lovers of "American" basketball, movies and Hollywood Oscar winners. While at the same time denying "the great leader" his "right" to enjoy the sweet sounds of The New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. By the way, wasn't Hitler also a "great lover" of the symphony? Just asking.
could so viciously attack
May 12, 2008 - 19:13 ET by BDcould so viciously attack lovers of "American" basketball, movies and Hollywood Oscar winners...
We forget his huge collectoin of C-Grade pornography (Reportedly so huge the library rivals most normal city library's) and D-Grade action films.
We also forget that the "Chonger" as we used to call him dispatched a nK SOF team to kidnap a South Korean actress and had her brought to nKorea so she would make films just for him to watch. See posting below:
If only he would have kidnapped the Robbins/Sarandons, right?
I read the interview above,
May 12, 2008 - 19:06 ET by BDI read the interview above, and something blasted into my mind...
Amonpour has become Walter Duranty, the New York Times reporter who was a professional apologist for the Soviet Union under Stalin.
Like Amanpour, Duranty avoided reporting the famine in Ukraine and attempted to discredit others' reports who were brave enough to tell the truth.
For the record, I spent several years studying the nKoreans and can guarantee every one that Kim Jong Il is indeed "A nut."
I always laugh at anyone
May 12, 2008 - 19:20 ET by Clear thinkerI always laugh at anyone that defends N. KOREA and it's scumbag leader.
Here's how I judge their poverty... The fattest citizen in their country is Kim. Why is that???
"Abstain from McCain"
Albright
May 13, 2008 - 00:12 ET by well99When I think of Clinton and her this ad pops in my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h3GPc_yMCE&feature=PlayList&p=B771AA5D5335EA41&index=0
As far Amanpour it has been said.What a shill.