Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has a book to sell. In the manner of modern authors, he is making the rounds of cable news and talk radio shows, publicizing his tome, and making himself available for questioning. But he chickened out yesterday, rather than face a well—informed questioner, Richard Perle.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Blix had been scheduled as a guest on Tribune—owned radio station WGN, during the evening Milt Rosenberg Show. However, once he learned that Rosenberg had booked Perle to offer questions and a counterpoint, Blix's publicist at Pantheon, his publisher, abruptly cancelled his appearance at the last minute.

It wasn't a matter of having to share the airwaves, it was Rosenberg's choice of Perle as a questioner.  According to the Tribune,

We told his publicist we'd have someone else on, but we didn't say who," Rosenberg said.

Viewing Blix's recent TV appearance on the spin—hostile O'Reilly Factor, he seemed to have his arguments well—enough prepared to easily weather Bill O'Reilly's questioning. But Perle, who until recently sat on the the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board as an unpaid advisor, actually had expert knowledge rivaling or — dare we say — surpassing Blix's.

Perhaps Blix, whose book is a regarded as a 'Bible for war opponents,' feared that his arguments that UN inspectors just needed more time, and that the war may have made terrorism worse, could not sustain themselves in the face of an informed and tenacious questioner like Perle.

Until Blix is willing to face Perle, his arguments cannot be taken seriously.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune, in reporting on the affair, is still up to its usual word tricks. Perle is characterized as  a 'pro—war polemicist.' If so, what does that make Blix? The Trib merely has him as a 'Former chief United Nations weapons inspector.'

Posted by Thomas  03 19 04