This Week's Hero

.

CNN's Anderson Cooper, Hero; Environmental Out-of-Tune-ity Albert Slap, Zero

By: Nancy Smith | Posted: October 11, 2010 4:05 AM

This Week's Hero: Anderson Cooper

CNN’s Anderson Cooper may be half-celebrity-half-journalist, but last week he proved his better half is all newsman.

In a 10-minute, take-no-prisoners interview with Florida Democratic congressman Alan Grayson, Cooper surgically dismantled Grayson’s “Taliban Dan” and “Daniel Webster Doesn’t Love This Country” campaign ads – and left a normally overbearing Grayson unconvinced, but virtually without a closing response.

It was the only "gotcha" interview I ever saw that was introduced as one upfront, and that didn't deteriorate into a brow-beating.

In a rare defense of conducting such an aggressive interview, Cooper said this of Grayson’s Republican opponent, Dan Webster: “It’s not our job to stick up for everybody who gets hammered in a campaign ad … but elections live or die on voters having accurate information.

“We think it’s our job to call people out, no matter where they stand on the political spectrum, for polluting the waters of public knowledge.”

Which, Cooper said, is exactly what Grayson did. He said Grayson's “Taliban Dan” ad “was cherry-picked, taken, almost breathtakingly, out of context.”

When Grayson responded that the ad had been taken down and a new one put up, and its basic premise – that Webster’s concept of women is medieval – is the overall truth of the ad, Cooper returned to his question: But, why would you allow the editing of a Webster speech to make it say exactly the opposite of what was being said?

Cooper showed footage of the speech – making it difficult for any Grayson defense to gain traction.

At the end Cooper was gracious, fair, ever the respectful host. He gave the Democrat credit for agreeing to the interview. Grayson, he said, was the only candidate under fire for bad advertising who did.

In case you didn't know, Yale grad Anderson Cooper, a journalist who never had any formal journalism education, is the son of heiress Gloria Vanderbilt and her fourth husband, writer Wyatt Cooper. He’s part of old money in this country. Born with a silver spoon. Still, if you ever saw his crusading work on the Gulf Coast in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, you would know he has overcome the pedigree, the is-he-serious-about-what-he-does question.

Speaking personally, I knew all that. What I didn’t know until this interview was how prepared he is to stick his neck out, making sure political discourse in this country – however it’s proffered – favors the interests of a well-informed electorate. Anderson Cooper is easily this week's hero.