What I was struck by in reading the transcript was the obsession Larry King had with "the big question" -- did HB do wrong by making this comparison? -- King kept going around this question long after HB had made his answer, and he had to repeat virtually the same answer about 10 times. As soon as Belafonte shifted topics, onto the more important questions about the war, about American international policy, whatever, King immediately became nervous and wanted to go back to the clash of two people. It would be a very good transcript to show to students about the difficulty of having intelligent debates on important topics on television, given the drive of contemporary journalism.


Reading the transcript, it appears to me that Belafonte was basically wrong, and should have apologised to Powell. That he stood his ground was admirable, as Rick points out, and that someone has the guts to speak out in an atmosphere of general cowering is fine, but as an argument, Larry King's main points were right. Simply because Belafonte disagrees with Powell (as I do) about Iraq, does not give Belafonte the right to argue that Powell and Rice are somehow betraying black people in general.

yours, Peter T.