How Ali G Gets His Mock-Interviews with Prominent People

An article in Slate investigates:

The American version of Da Ali G Show recently wrapped up its second season on HBO, and, once again, a long list of prominent Americans have been embarrassed. Somehow, Sacha Baron Cohen, in the guise of a British would-be gangsta with a penchant for malapropisms and misunderstandings, managed to secure another passel of interviews with people like former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman (who conceded that, yes, whale feces "have got to be massive") and archconservative Patrick Buchanan (who said that Saddam Hussein "was using BLTs on the Kurds")

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But according to accounts from several people who have fallen for Baron Cohen's ruses—some of whom were too humiliated to go on the record—the come-on begins with a flattering letter sent to an unsuspecting target...."