The season premiere of the famed news show 60 Minutes airs tonight with a long segment on Garry Kasparov. There's a video clip on the 60 Minutes website.
The season premiere of the famed news show 60 Minutes airs tonight with a long segment on Garry Kasparov. There's a video clip on the 60 Minutes website.
Kasparov had a good answer when he was asked (paraphrases):
CROFT: "Since the Russian opinion polls shows Putin with an approval rating of 70%, why struggle against what the people apparently want?"
KASPAROV: "Nobody really knows what popularity poll results mean when there is no freedom of the press to debate the merits of a supposedly popular president."
Followed by what has become our standard reply to Putin's infamous popularity myth: if the White House had control of the media and a pervasive security force, Bush and Cheney would be polling at 70% too. Lukashenko polls over 80%. Saddam was at 99% until the first US tanks rolled into Baghdad. Putin's regime isn't yet in their league, but that 70% should never be mentioned without the fact that the media is state-controlled and used aggressively to promote the govt. and shut out any other voices.
I thought it was good. Short, with many answers cut a little oddly, but very good. The Russian guys they brought in to rebut, a famous media guy and a Kremlin spokeman, basically admitted that democratic reforms have been rolled back, that Kasparov was in great personal danger, and, my favorite, when the Kremlin guy was asked if the upcoming elections were going to be free and fair, he started out with a very slow, "weeelllll, it's not the same blah blah..." If your guy can't answer that with a "yes" you really need to hire a better spokesclown.
They flashed the book for around 2 seconds. Oh well.
Hey Mig shouldn't you rebrand this site kasparov.com again?
I know you are busy helping promote Kasparov's book but can you go back and write about CHESS here?
Maybe you should stick to the 95% of the text here that is about chess and let me write about whatever the hell I want to write about.
Mig can write about sprinkled donuts if he wants. Anyway, I thought the segment was pretty good. I haven't watched 60 Minutes (or TV in general) in a long while, and this was a nice diversion. They did flash the book, and I had to laugh when they said that Kasparov spends some of his time writing. We here know who does most of the writing. Although I must say, Mig, you do keep the tone and language of your ghostewriting distinctly Kasparovian.
Mig, will you be accompanying Kasparov to any of his book signings? I'm hoping to get my copy of Test of Time signed, as long as the Harvard bookstore doesn't force me to buy a U.S. edition of his latest. (I bought the UK edition in August.)
Howard