In a recent interview on CNN, Piers Morgan asked Rick Santorum about his views on choice.
Santorum, calm, be-sweatered and comfortable with Morgan's almost fatherly manner, patiently explained life, when it begins and what must never be done about it. And then, pressed for the advice he would give his daughter if she became pregnant from a rape, Santorum said:
I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created - in the sense of rape, but nevertheless - gift, in a very broken way, but gift of human life and accept what God has given to you.
Gift? That God has given?
That clip is outrageous enough.
Morgan's interview lasts about five minutes. It is worth the time.
Piers Morgan is not known to be a gentle interviewer. (It was he who had the temerity to call the sitting Shrub an "idiot" on international television.) In fact, this former "news presenter" from Britain may turn out to be one of the more dogged interviewers in American mainstream media.
True, asking the kind of question that Bernard Shaw asked of Michael Dukakis, the hypothetical whether he would favor the death penalty for a rapist if his wife was the one raped, is not slashing journalistic insight. But Shaw hit Dukakis with it with little foreplay. Morgan lures Santorum into his full and exasperating explanation, step by simple and graceful step.
May Morgan continue to practice this style. Oh, were other interviewers on politics - and a host of other subjects, too, but let's focus on politics this year - so prepared and persistent!
Moyers, Maddow and now maybe Morgan. Anyone else come close to their league these days?