Interview with Carole Coleman
Introduction
Thirty-nine-year-old Carole Coleman is a native of County Leitrim in Ireland. Since age 21, she has worked in radio and television in both Ireland and America and has covered international events in China, Russia, Belarus, Haiti, Northern Ireland, and most of Europe. In 2004, Ms. Coleman made world headlines when she interviewed George W. Bush for the national broadcasting company of Ireland. In a contentious interview she repeatedly challenged the President on the real value of his decision to invade Iraq.
She then journeyed from her home in Annapolis to some of America’s so-called “red” states to discover the side of America that TV and Hollywood ignore and that Europeans just don’t understand. Alleluia America: An Irish journalist in Bush Country is her first book.
The first chapter of your book, Alleluia America! deals with your interview of President Bush just prior to his trip to Ireland in 2004. What were some of the "hard issues" you asked him about, and what were his answers?
My main question for the President was whether he really thought the world was a safer place as a result of the Iraq war. This is something that’s very hard to see from the vantage point of an outsider and I wanted to know what insight he had that could convince me that the war in Iraq was keeping the world safer. His response was that the world was better off without Saddam Hussein and that a free Iraq would eventually deny the terrorists their oxygen. But three years on Iraq is even more troublesome, something countless experts saw coming, but not the President. Many admire his tenacity and optimism but I felt it was something that needed to be challenged.
I also asked if he could explain why so many inside and outside America don’t understand his thinking. “History will judge what I�m about” he said. On whether he is being guided by God in his presidency he indicated that while he prays for sustenance and forgiveness his faith is a private matter.
Your publisher describes Alleluia America! as a "voyage of discovery" across America. Can you tell us where you voyaged, and what you discovered?
Red America caught my attention after the President was re-elected. I needed to find out what attracted half the US voting public to him given the opposition in Europe and elsewhere. I traveled in Kansas, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland, crossed the border to Mexico and visited the interrogation camp at Guantanamo Bay.
I found that people needed to hear good news about America not bad news and this attracted them to George Bush, the optimist. People of deep faith also gravitated to him but mistakenly assumed that everyone living on the coasts was Godless. They also felt that Europe should mind its own business, although I was made feel welcome everywhere.
What was the most surprising thing you learned?
That even Irish Mormons don’t take a cup of tea! And the fact that you can be “born again” at the tender age of five!
As an Irish journalist in America, you have a unique perspective on American politics. What is our biggest political problem? Is it that politicians have to raise too much money, thus indebting themselves to special interests? Is it that consultants have too strong an influence? Or what?
All those things are true but not limited to the US. From my vantage point the biggest problem in 2006 is the actual personalities in the current administration who seem to arouse feelings of deep distrust. The secrecy with which the White House operates and the reluctance to admit obvious flaws does little to reassure people that things are under control in any area of government, not just in Iraq.
What do you think of the American press? Too timid? Too reluctant to challenge authority or "conventional wisdom"?
They are more reserved than European Journalists for sure. I learned from my own experience that engaging in debate with the President is not encouraged! American journalists are seeing their role change as authority figures are shutting out traditional reporters in favor of media that are more supportive of their point of view. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney regularly turn up on conservative talk radio but rarely sit for an interview with the New York Times which is more probing. I was an unwanted surprise for them.