Major Garrett Submits Himself for Judgment By the Highest of Powers

Though they’ve spoken over the phone on many occasions, today was the first time Imus and Major Garrett, a reporter for National Journal, met in person. What better opportunity, then, to put Garrett on the spot, months after the fact, about why he really left his gig as White House Correspondent for Fox News?
 
And who better to interrogate him than Warner Wolf, who once took an FBI interrogation course and is by no means an expert?
 
“All the reasons I’ve given are absolutely true,” Garrett insisted for, like, the umpteenth time. “I wanted to return to my life in print. I was a print reporter for 17 years. National Journal was going through a complete re-launch, re-vamping all of its magazine and digital publications.”
 
What’s more, Garrett had the opportunity to work for two men he considers among the best journalists in this country—Ron Fournier and Ron Brownstein. “This one came along at a perfect time for me to re-transition back to the thing I love the most,” he said, adding, “For me, the greatest vanity is to be read, not to be heard.”
 
At which point he totally lost Imus, who commented, “Not like us narcissistic morons.”
 
As Warner debated Garrett’s response, Imus wondered how President Obama has been handling the uprisings throughout the Middle East, most recently in Libya, where military helicopters, presumably at the whim of President Muammar Gaddafi, fired on protesters over the weekend. Interestingly, Garrett bumped into Tom Donilon, the National Security Advisor, on his way out of church yesterday, and asked him about this exact issue.
 
“He said there are tectonic plates moving in the Middle East; there are things we can say and do, but there are other things we should not say and should not do, because we’re not in control of the situation,” Garrett said.
 
He acknowledged the general feeling in this country that Obama should be saying or doing something more, but noted, “What can he say, other than, ‘Don’t slaughter civilians, Gaddafi, okay?’ That doesn’t stop it from happening, unless you have some means by which to stop it.”
 
Sometimes, Garrett observed, there are rare moments in history when the poet understands more than the rationalist. He explained, “Right now, poetry is being written in the Middle East. Individuals are standing up for their rights—they’re willing to die for something definable, something about their future they’ve long sought but never felt the courage to try to pursue.”
 
The problem, however, is that poets do not run governments. “People run governments,” Garrett said. “And forces, and machinery, and power run governments. That’s the next stage, but right now it’s poetry. And most governments don’t know how to deal with poets.”
 
But Warner Wolf knew how to deal with his subject, and judgment time had arrived.
 
“The good news is that Major didn’t blink, he didn’t smack his lips, he didn’t say, ‘trust me,’ or ‘I swear on my mother’s grave,’” Warner said. To his detriment, Garrett had avoided eye contact, looked down a lot, and answered Imus’s questions in an apologetic tone.
 
Imus, for one, felt Garrett was being honest. “Warner, butt out,” Imus said. “I mean, thank you.”
 
-Julie Kanfer