Brian Bonner: ​That was one lousy interview with Putin, Charlie Rose

Russian President Vladimir Putin is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a year with his vast worldwide propaganda networks such as Russia Today.

All he needs to do is find more unprepared, ill-informed and poor interviewers such as Charlie Rose of the American "60 Minutes" news program on the CBS network. There are plenty of them out there.

Rose interviewed Putin at his state residence outside Moscow for a program broadcast on national TV in America on Sept. 27, a day ahead the Russian president's speech before the United Nations General Assembly and a private meeting later U.S. President Barack Obama.

Three digressions:

* I hate criticizing fellow journalists, fellow members of the lodge, because most of us -- including Rose, a respected veteran -- work hard and work honestly and all of us are imperfect.

* "60 Minutes" used to be the gold standard of American television journalism, back in the days when Dan Rather was young and Mike Wallace was alive. It has slipped considerably, another reason why I don't miss the noise, superficiality and self-promotion of broadcast journalism. I find the printed word so much more efficient and informative. But since this is a television world, and Rose is one of the stars, he's big and tough enough to take criticism. According to his Wikipedia entry, the 73-year-old Rose owns a house in Henderson, North Carolina; a farm in Oxford, North Carolina; an apartment overlooking Central Park in New York City; a beach house in Bellport, New York; an apartment in Washington, D.C.; and an apartment in Paris, France. So he's doing better than, say, your average journalist.

* Unfortunately, it's not just journalists like Rose who don't know how to treat Putin. The paralysis extends to politicians and diplomats all over the world, including the frequently flummoxed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Unfortunately, the world's governments and institutions -- including the UN - don't know what to do about he criminal in their midst.

Now to the criticism:

Either Rose didn't do any research beforehand or his researchers and producers let him down. Either way, he's to blame. He also conducted the interview in an alternatively fawning and silly manner.

Rose played incessantly to Putin's over-sized ego, saying that he is a force to be reckoned with in the world partly because of his nuclear weapons.

"I hope so," Putin responded. "Otherwise, why do we have nuclear weapons at all?"

Here's some of the other softballs from Rose:

Rose: "You're much talked about in America."

Putin: "Maybe they have nothing else to do."

Rose: "Maybe they're a curious people."

Putin silence.

Rose: "Maybe you're an interesting character. They see these images of you -- bare-chested on a horse -- and say there is a man who carefully cultivates his image of strength."

And others from Rose in the category of how not to conduct an interview:

Rose: "You have been an intelligence offer. Intelligence officers know how to read other people. It's part of the job, yes?"

Rose: "A CIA operative said to me - you learn the capacity to be liked as well - you have to charm people, you have to seduce them?"

Putin: "If the CIA told you that, that's the way it is, they're an expert on that."

Rose dropped all pretense of being a serious journalist with this one:

"You have a popularity rating in Russia that would make every politician in the world envious. Why are you so popular?"

Then, when Rose was unable to figure out for himself what to ask, he reverted to the third-person plural "they said" when posing "tough" questions. He compounded his idiocy by further attributing to Russia what "they" accuse Putin of being.

Rose: "Many people who are critical of Russia, they say it's more autocratic, less democratic. They say political opponents have been killed and imprisoned in Russia. they say your power is unchallenged and they say that power and absolute power corrupts absolutely. What do you say to those people who worry about the climate and atmosphere in Russia?"

After Putin ate Rose's lunch with the answer, the questioning got even more pitiful with Rose saying that if Putin -- "because of your power" -- insisted on rule of law in Russia, "it could go a long way to eliminating" the bad perceptions that "they" have.

Rose, unable to come up with any substance throughout the long interview, then tried to get the warm-and-fuzzy Putin to open up about his feelings regarding America and Obama, with little success.

Rose: "Are you curious about America..."?

Putin: "Of course, we're curious..."

Rose: What do you admire most about America?"

Putin: "I like the creativity..."

Rose: "Let me ask you what do you think of President Obama. What's your evaluation of him?"

Putin: "That's up to the American people."

Rose: "Do you think his actions in foreign affairs reflect a weakness?"

Putin: "...I don't think so..."

Rose: "Does he listen to you?"

Putin: "I think we listen to each other in a way, especially when it comes to something that doesn't go counter to our own ideas about what we should and should not do."

(Editor's Note: In other words, they only listen to each other when they agree with each other.)

Rose: "Does he consider you an equal, which is the way you want to be treated?"

Putin: (laughs) "You ask him. He's your president. How can I know what he thinks?"

Then Rose decided to channel Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who called Putin a "gangster."

Putin: "How can I be a gangster if I worked for the KGB. Come on. That does not correspond to reality."

(Editor's Note: Actually, working for the KGB should be one of the dictionary definitions of being a gangster.)

Rose: "Are your people afraid of you?"

Putin: "I think no, they're not. Most people trust me if they vote for me in the election."

Rose: "As you know, some have called you a czar?"

Putin: "So what? People call me different things."

Rose: "Does the name fit?"

Putin: "No it does not fit me."

This happens all too often in public discourse throughout the world, unfortunately. Politicians, not only dictators like Putin, either own their own very controllable news organizations or they seek out pliant, friendly journalists who ask weak questions, send questions in advance or allow the sources to approve the way an interview is edited.

I can put together a list of dozens of top-notch journalists who would be more capable of interviewing Putin than Rose, but obviously Rose's cluelessness is exactly what the Kremlin needed.

Until politicians are willing to take the tough questions from tough but informed and fair journalists, working for organizations whose publishers support editorial independence, then democracy and free speech will continue to suffer.

You can make up your own minds by watching the interview here.

Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at bonner@kyivpost.com