Devils Advocate Rocks !

Thats the name of the show which is hosted by Karan Thapar and whose guest this week was none other than the media savvy Pak. President Gen. Pervez Musharaff. This is the same man who had taken the then Vajpayee government by surprise during the Agra summit when he addressed a section of the media in a " chai party " of which the Indian govt. was taken by surprise . He came across as a person who was very dynamic and charismatic leader . Years have passed through and I till very recently maintained that he still was an impeccable media savvy politician in my eyes.

But all that changed on hearing his inane remarks on the show cast on CNN IBN Live. It was more of a stress interview for the poor General as he had tough time countering the questions from Karan Thapar. The very first thing is that I hate to see all diplomatic efforts on full throttle once a year during the Indo-Pak series. If one needs to sincerely move any further in dialogues then the process must be continuous in nature. Coming back to the interview a couple of statements by the General made me bounce of the floor laughing ! One of them was something like this "The Pak army is a professional unit . It has fought 2 wars ( General ji forgot Kargil and also that Pak lost all the wars it fought ) . Its not like any Banana Republic " . Though not hilarious one another thing that he mentioned was that the Indian Army move out of 3 places Kupwara, Baramullah and Srinagar . ( General ji is trying to build a palace in mid air ) . During the whole interview he was countered by Karan Thapar that he will think 10 times before having an exclusive interview with any Indian Journalist. Bravo Karan !

But then the final statement summed up the whole interview. Mr Thapar said at the end of the interview "General Musharraf a pleasure speaking to you on Devils Advocate. " Mr Musharraf shot back saying that " Thank you . The name is very correct . " This was the only answer which impressed me of the General.

Mr. Thapar next lets take the case of Mr. Kiran More.