When Arnold Schwarzenegger was tapped to be one of the guests on Tom Brokaw’s first episode moderating Meet The Press, I’m sure he thought it would be the same lazy, glorifying interview that he always gets from a national media that has no idea how he’s governing the state of California and simply knows him from his box-office receipts and magazine covers. These were the principles that guided someone like Tim Russert, who wasn’t at all balanced when interviewing Republicans, and especially someone like Schwarzenegger, who let that slip in this rememberance of the late NBC host:
…Governor, you were the guest of Tim Russert several times.
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R-CA): Several times, and he always did great interviews with a lot of humor, tough questions, but we had a great time, and I really miss him, I have to say that. And he was–I remember when I ran for governor, he called me, and he says, “If you make that, if you win, then I will take care of the rest.” And I said, “What are you talking about?” And he says, “I will get you to run for president. I will make sure that we change the Constitution.” Well, it never happened, but anyway, I miss him very much.
Nice role for a journalist, to assure politicians that he will personally interfere to amend the Constitution in their favor.
But Brokaw actually did his homework a bit, and the difference between a Russert interview and this one was evident in the very next question.
MR. BROKAW: When you ran for governor in 2003, you ran as a fiscal conservative who would change the system. You would bring businesslike techniques. Now you’re facing a $15 billion deficit here in California. Unemployment is running at about 6.8 percent. You’ve got the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. If you were the CEO of a public company, the board would probably say, “It’s time to go.”
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: Are you always that positive?
Man, you have to see the video for the look on Arnold’s face when he realized this wouldn’t be a junket. Priceless.
Inexplicably, Schwarzenegger defended his record by talking about how he “was able to bring Democrats and Republicans together.” Hmm, I must have been asleep for the past several years when he managed that.
The rest of the interview goes downhill from there. Evan Halper has a good recap. Arnold must have been THRILLED when Brokaw moved on to the Presidential race. It’s particularly amusing when he laments that politicians in Washington can’t get anything done. That’s right, it’s just the politicians in WASHINGTON that are the problem.
Amazing how the tenor of the interview changes when the interviewer makes the bold step of being prepared. Arnold never knew what hit him.