Glynnis MacNicol | Business Insider
Last night’s Larry King interview with Vladimir Putin — amidst the ‘fallout’ of the WikiLeaks documents — was, as you might imagine, at turns awkward and comic.
Between King’s natural, shall we say, delay and the awkward translator the result was surely fodder for SNL, or at least a good overdub on the Daily Show.
Why Putin even needed the translator is unclear; as someone pointed out to me last night his English is very strong. Maybe he was giving Larry extra time to formulate a response. Or perhaps he’s in cahoots with late night television.
Meanwhile, here’s what Putin had to say about the WikiLeaks revelation that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates thinks “Russian democracy has disappeared and the government is run by security services.”
Said former KGB-er Putin: “I know Mr. Gates. I met him several times. I believe he’s a very nice person and he’s not a bad expert too…but it is known also that Mr. Gates is one of the leaders of CIA of the United States of America before and today he happens to be the Sec of Defense. Now if he’s the best expert in Democracy in the United States of America than I congratulate you on that.”
Larry: “So he is wrong in saying [checks notes] that you’re country is being run by secret security services?”
Answer: Yes. (I’m paraphrasing…he goes on for a while about Russian democracy and U.S. interference.) He also thinks that while WikiLeaks is not a catastrophe, “more attention should be paid to diplomatic cables.” Interview clip below. Or you can just wait for this weekend’s version on SNL.
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The original version of the story appears here: http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-tells-larry-king-if-robert-gates-is-your-expert-on-democracy-i-congratulate-you-video2010-12
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