Was Zakaria Worth $75,000? Photo Courtesy of Claremontmckenna.edu
A friend writes in with this tidbit about the cost of bringing past Res Publica speaker, Fareed Zakaria, to our college earlier this semester.
Apparently, according to Harpers, the cost for one hour of Mr. Zakaria's time is $75,000, excluding the first class ticket, car service and hotel accommodations. Now to be fair, the figures were given in 2008, before the stock market crash and may or may not include the value of the book signing he did while on campus. I want to stress that I do not have the figures for his honorarium, but don't doubt that the college would lavish this kind of money easily.
According to one of the professors that brought him, Justice Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, spoke for an estimated $10,000. Bono, spoke for a little under one half hour, and received $100,000.
Now, I'm all for the laws of supply and demand -- there is after all, only one Fareed Zakaria -- but we are fools to value him that highly, especially when much of his remarks came straight from his columns, books, and television program and when we are suffering under the weight of tremendous budget cuts.
2 comments:
At times Fareed Zakaria's show on CNN appears as an attempt to put India on the global public space. On occasions he reduces his Newsweek and Foreign Affairs magazine stature to be the voice of the Indians, for the Indians by an Indian.
His father, Rafiq Zakaria, was a politician associated with the Indian National Congress serving as Deputy Leader of the Party under Indira Gandhi.
While pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Political Science from Harvard University in 1993, he studied under Samuel P. Huntington and Stanley Hoffmann. Perhaps the tendencies that reflect from his typically tainted questions come from the influence of such peers.
For the programmes aired on Sunday December 6, 2009 a viewer may find it interesting to compare the manner in which questions are raised by Fareed Zakaria and John King. Both were asking their guests about the implications of Obama's decision to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.
On 'State of the Union' John King was asking straight forward question of what American viewers should know regarding the pros and cons of the announced surge.
In his Global Public Space on CNN, Fareed Zakaria's questions are
loaded as he is seen pointing questions to solicit critical light on Pakistan. Examples such as those below from the transcript will prove helpful:
ZAKARIA:
Now, since there is a historical issue where the Pakistanis have not seen Karzai as somebody friendly to them, they have in the past given support to the Afghan Taliban, is it the case that Pakistan is entirely on board with this strategy, and will now work to stabilize and strengthen the Karzai government?
HOLBROOKE: No country is more important to our success than Pakistan. Indeed, I've often said and written for the last four years, five years, that success in Afghanistan is unachievable without Pakistan's active, proactive support, that if you have a large and safe sanctuary across the border, and they just sit there, and you can't go after them, you're going to pay a heavy price.
ZAKARIA: Ambassador Holbrooke, let me ask you a final question.
You say the sanctuary in Pakistan is the single most important issue. So, is it fair to say, then, that one crucial measure of progress will be whether or not the Pakistani army does, in fact, go after the Afghan Taliban and those terror groups in North Waziristan and Baluchistan that threaten not Pakistanis, but Afghans or Indians or Westerners?
Is that going to be a key test of your success?
HOLBROOKE: I think it is.
Source: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0912/06/fzgps.01.html
Those who check the questions asked by John King from US national security adviser, General James Jones in his 'State of the Union' programme will see the difference by themselves:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0912/06/sotu.01.html
KING: Well, then, help us understand that, then. What is the commitment? Because many have questioned the commitment of the Pakistani government to do that. They say they go after the indigenous Pakistani Taliban, but they are not going up in here, where you have the Afghan Taliban that has come over the border and had refuge. Is part of the new strategy -- is there a new commitment from Pakistan to do more up in here?
JONES: We are working with the Pakistani authorities, the Pakistani military in an increasing atmosphere of trust and confidence and realization that these problems have to be -- have to be tackled. This is a cancer in the region that effects not just Afghanistan, it affects Pakistan as well.
And I think the Pakistani government and the military deserve a lot of credit for what they've done in the last seven or eight months, first in the Swat Valley and second in South Waziristan. And of course we have -- we want to encourage them and help them in any way we can to go into the other areas to make sure that we scatter these insurgents.
Even when two hosts on CNN are discussing same issues, it is interesting to know how some of them use their position to steer the discussion in a particular direction where guests are insistedly urged to put more pressure on one side.
Post a Comment