In the bold tradition of former CBS anchorman Dan Rather cooing to Saddam Hussein, Mike Wallace of CBS meets Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to whisper sweet nothings in his ear at a mutual love-in:

Of Ahmadinejad, Wallace said, "He's an impressive fellow, this guy. He really is. He's obviously smart as hell."

Wallace said he was surprised to find that the Iranian president was still a college professor who taught a graduate-level course.

"You'll find him an interesting man," he said. "I expected more of a firebrand. I don't think he has the slightest doubt about how he feels ... about the American administration and the Zionist state. He comes across as more rational than I had expected."

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"He's actually, in a strange way, he's a rather attractive man, very smart, savvy, self-assured, good looking in a strange way," Wallace said. "He's very, very short but he's comfortable in his own skin."

As John Hinderaker writes, "What is this, a Tiger Beat interview?" Did Wallace ask Ahmadinejad to "be good to us", as Barbara Walters once said on-camera to a newly-elected Jimmy Carter?

The real "tell" from Wallace, as "Cardinalpark" of TigerHawk notes, is this:

What I found most shocking wasn’t that Wallace found Ahmedinejad in some way charming or attractive (though I’ve heard he is relentlessly chided for BO) – it was his voluntary reference to Israel as the “Zionist State”. That is a socialist and islamist way of referring to Israel as a creature of imperialism and it makes plain to me that Wallace sympathizes with Ahmedinejad’s anti-Zionism (at the very least). His use of that phrasing is, I think, telling – akin to Richard Cohen’s refernce to Israel as a “mistake.” Really appalling. Of course, we know that Saddam didn’t have long to last after the Rather interview, so maybe this bodes well...

We can only hope.

In the meantime, keep up those fine, hard-hitting standards, CBS!

Update: Tammy Bruce writes that Wallace has found his soulmate in Ahmadinejad: "I think he's in love", she writes, adding, "If anyone thinks CBS's bias is just against President Bush and not against this nation in general, CBS apparently wants to disabuse you of that notion right away":

It speaks volumes that Mike Wallace has nicer things to say about Iran's Jew-hating genocidal Islamist maniac than he does about President Bush.

I suppose they thought they would be giving a platform to Ahmadinejad, but it seems like we've learned a heck of a lot more about Wallace, CBS and Viacom than we ever imagined we would.

Truth be told, after witnessing this exchange on TV in the late 1980s, I learned everything I wanted to about Wallace.

Incidentally, last December, Chris Wallace was strongly questioning his father's competence--or lack thereof.

Cheesecake Update: Well, there's a first: I think Josephine Baker just tracked back to this post...