One-on-One with Assad

Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, is arguably the world’s oddest dictator, a supremely ordinary looking supreme leader whose milquetoast manner is wildly at odds with the ferocity of his efforts to hold on to power in the face of a popular uprising. His banality also makes him an exceedingly tough interview. Just convincing Assad to sit for questions was a major coup, the biggest “get” of 2013. CBS This Morning’s Charlie Rose conducted the face-to-face session with exemplary gravitas and journalistic acumen, politely but doggedly pressing Assad about his one-time reputation as a progressive reformer and his recent savage military response, including the use of chemical weapons, against civilians as well as rebel militias. Assad showed himself a master dissembler, denying charges even when Rose cited independent confirmations. But the dictator’s dispassionate defense, deftly captured by Rose’s crew, was revealing in and of itself. For its timely, meaningful look into the face and mind of a tyrant, One-on-One with Assad receives a Peabody Award.