12. Pitchman Supreme
During my stay in New York, I subletted a room from a pleasant, middle-aged fellow named Robert. Robert was a tenant in a rent-controlled apartment on West 58th Street in Manhattan. Win-Win. I got a room with a view of Central Park, and Robert made a profit. Robert had three spare bedrooms, so he did quite well.
The living room featured a television that served as the evening focal point for the four or five residents of the apartment. The most popular program was “Nightline”, a nightly public affairs show hosted by Ted Koppel. Nightline was an entertaining and informative guide to current events, and a favorite of Julio, a Columbian graduate student from the city of Cali.
With the Palestinian-Israeli conflict raging on, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, then Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, was a regular Nightline guest. Netanyahu, speaking in eloquent American English, proved to be a superb pitchman. His foil, a representative of the Arab League named Clovis Maksoud, was no match for Bibi. “The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) is not a terrorist group,” asserted Maksoud, “They are freedom fighters.”
Bibi, looking squarely into the camera, exclaimed: “The PLO? Freedom fighters? Let me tell you about freedom fighters. The Partisans during World War Two — now those were freedom fighters.”
Swish!
“Ooooh,” cooed Julio, “I like heem.”
