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The key to those brilliant @IChotiner interviews is not just his incisive mind, but his focus on and familiarity with primary source texts generated by the subject. He doesn't give ?'s that allow subjects to repeat themselves. Instead it's "you said this, what does that mean?"
And in the case of BEE, Chotiner has identified clear internal contradictions. But rather than say outright, "this reads like bullshit" he holds the contradictions up for the subject to comment on. "How do you square these two things that don't make sense?"
I'd like to know @IChotiner's behind the scenes process, if he picks a subject and then goes looking through the primary sources or if he finds some primary sources and realizes the contradictions he's identifying would make for a good interview.
Reading @IChotiner's oeuvre makes me realize how many interviewers primarily ask questions that elicit something the subject has already said, many times before. Their lack of familiarity with the primary sources leads to this, IMO.
