WP TV critic Shales on the Craig interview: Matt Lauer, Making the Least Of an Opportunity

[DeepModem Mom]

NBC's Matt Lauer, Making the Least Of an Opportunity
By Tom Shales
Wednesday, October 17, 2007; Page C01


Lauer missed opportunities to present challenging questions to the disgraced Idaho senator. (Virginia Sherwood/NBC Universal)

One thing, at least, was made painfully clear by Matt Lauer's interview with Sen. Larry Craig on NBC last night: Matt Lauer is no Mike Wallace. Lauer was anything but hard-hitting or confrontational with the Idaho Republican, arrested in June for alleged homosexual solicitation in a Minneapolis airport men's room.

For Lauer, self-important co-host of NBC's "Today" show, the interview was obviously seen as a potential career- and credibility-builder, but even when he did ask an arguably tough question, he essentially apologized for it. He prefaced a question about whether the senator might be bisexual by saying to Craig, "You're going to have to forgive me for this."...

Craig -- seated on a couch in what looked like the family den next to his wife, Suzanne -- pleaded guilty to nothing during the interview except having pleaded guilty (to "disrupting the peace") in the first place....Lauer wore his concerned, caring face throughout the interview, but he appeared to be an actor in a role, with every facial expression, gesture and use of props (a pair of glasses, a pen) calculated for effect. Craig was less than convincing in his denials, even if the airport incident did sound, as it has from the beginning, like a case of entrapment....

***

Lauer shied away from one of the more troubling aspects of the case. Craig, it was reported, had long been the subject of speculation as to his sexual proclivities, while in his role as a senator, he consistently opposed gay rights, including the granting of marital status to gay partners who live together. Lauer never brought up the issue of hypocrisy: the unseemly possibility that Craig essentially condemned homosexuality while partaking of gay sex himself.

Craig himself brought up his voting record and said of homosexuality, "I don't approve of the lifestyle." Lauer should have followed up; why did he call it a "lifestyle" and what about it does he disapprove of? At one point, reading from Craig's history, Lauer said the records included "a guy who claims you 'cruised' him -- whatever that is." This, it seemed, was Lauer's way of winking into the camera and saying, "I'm not gay." You hardly have to be gay in 21st-century America to know what the phrase "cruising" means. It was even the title of a movie starring Al Pacino. Lauer needs to worry less about his own image and more about getting valuable information when conducting an interview....

***

Ah yes, this was another chapter in the Matt Lauer Story more than it was an interview at all....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR2007101602494.html?hpid=news-col-blog

[RevCheesehead]

1. Nailed it...

"For Lauer, self-important co-host of NBC's "Today" show,...."

[question everything]

2. I don't even know why he bothered

and then broadcast it, or snippets of it on all NBC channels.

Who care?

[Eurobabe]

3. Matt who? yawn....

:boring:

[xchrom]

4. at least something good came out of that disaster of an interview -- this review.

[cynatnite]

5. Glad I missed it...

It's beyond my understanding why Matt Lauer and others like him are considered journalists. He hosts a morning show which only has about 10% real news. I'll never get why anyone expects somebody like him to be a real reporter. NBC set themselves up to get hit on this by using him and not someone with more journalistic credibility.

Whenever I see folks like Matt, Katie and others who do what they do pretend to be journalists I just change the channel because 90% of the time it ain't gonna happen.

[taterguy]

6. I liked when Lauer asked Mrs Craig if she had ever caught him using her sex toys

Maybe that was edited out of some of the later feeds.