Fareed Zakaria, Robert Frost, Adam Smith, and Marcus Aurelius

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

and miles to go before I sleep"

Hamid Karzai answered the question of whether he is planning to run for re-election as president of Afghanistan by quoting the American poet Robert Frost, indicating that his work is not yet finished. 

I was watching Fareed Zakaria GPS - an excellent show on CNN - and, just like last week, I was struck by the depth and breadth of the interviews. Last week, Zakaria interviewed Lee Kuan Yew (prime minister of Singapore from 1959-1990) who, at age 85, conversed with ease in depth about the US elections, the futility of nation-building, the conflict in Georgia, the Durand line between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the impact of global warming on Chinese farmers, etc.

This week, in addition to Hamid Karzai, Zakaria interviewed Wen Jiabao - the first Western interview with the prime minister of China in five years. Wen also spoke with impressive insight on a wide range of issues: the impact of the US financial crisis on China; China's role in Darfur, Iran, and North Korea; defending China's Market-Leninism by referring to Adam Smith's other work (The Theory of Moral Sentiments) and the 2nd century Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius whose work Meditations Wen supposedly has read over 100 times.

First, it is especially refreshing in the prevalent currents of anti-intellectualism here in the US, to see that there are new TV-shows that aren't afraid to take serious topics seriously. I've been a fan a Fareed Zakaria's for some time now, through his numerous appearences on The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher, and his writing for Newsweek (where he was a beacon of light in a sea of mediocrity), so I'm happy to see that he's able to stay true to his intellectual depth on his CNN-show (whereas CNN is usually simply embarrassing with their Situation Rooms, their Lou Dobbs tirades, their Crossfires, their Wolf Blitzer insights, their Newsrooms, their talking-point shouting matches...)

Second, it is encouraging to see that leaders in other countries are allowed to be both intelligent and knowledgeable, and that they don't have to reduce themselves to the lowest-common-denominator inanities we've grown accustomed to here. Politicians have become so afraid to admit that they are able to speak cogently on complex topics that we never get to see it anymore, and we've almost become unable to distinguish between the ones that pretend to be unsophisticated and the ones that actually have intellects rivaled only by garden tools. Yes, Mr. President, I'm talking about you.

Whew - sorry about the rant. I feel better now. Sort of.