May Steve bless the journalists who actually insist on answers to the questions they ask! One of our biggest pet peeves is when an interviewer poses a question, the interviewee tries to slime his or her way out of answering by saying something that completely and utterly avoids the subject-- and then the interviewer moves on like nothing happened. Where's the tenacity? Where's the dogged perseverance in the search for the truth? It makes us lose our patience.

So while we're not in the habit of lavishing CNET with praise, we find ourselves compelled to do so twice in the space of a single week. Last Friday those folks actually concluded (with a slew of caveats, natch) that Mac OS X is better than Windows 2000-- which had us wondering what the alien clones had done with the real CNET. And now today we grudgingly have to admit the teeniest smidge of admiration for CNET's Charles Cooper, who, as noted by faithful viewer George Chen, interviewed Bill Rodriguez (Dell's general manager of education) and wouldn't let him weasel his way out of the tough questions.

Not that we're any real fans of the article's subject matter or tone, mind you; it's basically about how Dell is allegedly kicking Apple's kiester in the education market right about now. Rodriguez slimes his whole way through the interview (displaying, at least, more diplomatic poise than his boss used to) and finally faces a direct question about Apple's skills or lack thereof: "Do you think Apple's lost its edge?" Check out Bill's reply: "As I talk to customers, I feel pretty good about the value proposition we bring to the table-- custom building, custom loading, free testing, delivering on time a quality product at good prices and giving excellent support on the back end-- coupled with the quality of people we have in the field."

Well, that's very nice, Bill-- except for the fact that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the question. So many of today's "journalists" would simply have rolled over and moved on, but to his credit, Charles responded with: "Fair points, but again, do you think Apple's lost its edge?" Thusly called on his slime, Bill had no choice but to answer-- by saying "I can't answer that." Oh, well. Those of us hoping for a comment about shutting Apple down and giving the money back to the shareholders must shoulder our disappointment. It just goes to show that you should never send a diplomat to do a Crazy Mike's job.