reply hazy

Good to know that I’m not the only one who is still confused about Obama’s potential talks with Iran. Marc Ambinder has a few additional questions for the senator, like what the difference is between preparation and pre-conditions. He points out that Barack Obama’s own website clearly says that he “supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions” and that his own advisors don’t always follow the same script when discussing his position on Iran. Hunter at the Daily Kos assures us that no President would unconditionally meet with leaders like Ahmadinejad. It’s just a Republican talking point. Right.  Then those evil Rovian conspirators must have gotten to barackobama.com and changed some text around in that Iran section.

If Obama really believes that there should be strings attached to talks with Iran, he might want to change his website to reflect that and make sure that his advisors get that message out there.  There can’t be any confusion where he stands on this issue going into November against John McCain.  Right now, there is.

nice try, iran

iriflag.jpgThe Iranian parliament has now voted to designate the CIA and the US Army as “terrorist organizations”. This is their lame response to our Senate resolution saying the same against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (also known as Quds Force). But I’m not worried — not until the United States receives one of those strongly worded letters from the UN warning us to change our behavior OR ELSE. Our resolution and their vote will only send a symbolic message, and ultimately both will mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. The United States doesn’t determine its position on Iran and the terrorist elements within its country based on their concern about what the Iranian parliament might do, and that is the right way to approach this.

Supporting the Senate resolution was the right thing to do, even though it ruffled a few netroots feathers. It doesn’t mean we plan to invade Iran. That’s not a good excuse, and the Senators who voted against it should try a different one.

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lefties love ahmadinejad

There is a stunning level of moral equivalence demonstrated by one sign seen at Columbia University yesterday: “Ahmadinejad is bad, but Bush is worse”. It is hard to explain how this makes any sense when we consider what we know about both men. Liberals still consider the 2000 election stolen. That’s the primary reason behind all the Dubya hate. They believe President Bush cheated to win, and they can’t accept any other explanation. It’s not just about the war in Iraq. They just find the war in Iraq to be a more popular excuse that the average person in this country might be able to accept.

President Bush, with a majority of Republican and Democrat support, ordered the invasion of Iraq. Is it this well-intentioned decision that qualifies our President as the moral equivalent of a man who believes in the full implementation of Sharia law, and someone who does not believe in extending the same rights he enjoyed here in this country to his own people? If we had any other president, and especially a Democrat, would we hear this kind of tripe from the left?

Speaking of Sharia law…

Here’s the kind of guy the left prefers to Bush. Ahmadinejad is someone who supports Hizballah terrorists, refuses to admit that he is aiding the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq (despite evidence of it), and someone who believes that not only is Israel not a state, but also that it should not exist at all. He opposes freedom of speech, assembly, and most of the rights Americans take for granted, and he actively prevents Iranians from speaking their mind and opposing their government. Try all those clever protests the lefties put on at Columbia in Iran, and see how well that works for ya. Liberals generally support gay marriage and tolerance of many alternative lifestyles. In Iran, Ahmadinejad claimed, “there are no homosexuals”. That’s probably because his government has them executed. Sharia law makes no allowances for alternative lifestyles. It also allows the oppression of women.

Women’s rights, despite what their President might tell you, are virtually non-existent in Iran. If you read Robert Spencer, or the Atlas Shrugs blog, or Little Green Footballs, you will find out the extremes to which women’s rights are surrendered under Islamic law. Things like acceptable wife-beating, polygamy, divorce laws which favor the men over the women, female circumcision, rape laws which don’t allow the women’s testimony to be admissible in court, instead requiring 4 male witnesses to the event to prove it occurred – all of this is part of the Islamic law supported by Ahmadinejad and his religious buddies the mullahs.

The Iranian President is ignoring the plank in his own country’s eye, which decrying the speck in America’s. He has no freedom of speech rights. That’s for American citizens. He also should have been restricted to the area surrounding the UN. His Secret Service protection should have been limited to that area. If you read or listen to his statements regarding Ground Zero, it’s clear that his motive was not to honor the victims of 9/11, but to honor the murderers who caused this attack. For that reason, we were right to keep him from Ground Zero. His propaganda tour should have ended at the UN, but Columbia University allowed him a forum to spread his anti-US message.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger would be given much more credit today for his harsh statements in his introduction of Ahmadinejad if he actually had taken a meaningful stand and not invited the guy in the first place.

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is he serious?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is interviewed by 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley, and he acts shocked, shocked, that Americans might not want him to visit the World Trade Center. (h/t – Drudge)

PELLEY: Mr. President, do you intend to press your request to visit the World Trade Center site?

AHMADINEJAD: Well, it was included in my program. If we have the time and the conditions are conducive, I will try to do that.

PELLEY: But the New York Police Department and others do not appear to want you there. Do you intend to go there anyway?

AHMADINEJAD: Well, over there, local officials need to make the necessary coordinations. If they can’t do that, I won’t insist.

PELLEY: Sir, what were you thinking? The World Trade Center site is the most sensitive place in the American heart, and you must have known that visiting there would be insulting to many, many Americans.

AHMADINEJAD: Why should it be insulting?

PELLEY: But the American people, sir, believe that your country is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world. You must have known that visiting the World Trade Center site would infuriate many Americans.

AHMADINEJAD: Well, I’m amazed. How can you speak for the whole of the American nation?

PELLEY: Well, the American nation–

AHMADINEJAD: You are representing a media and you’re a reporter. The American nation is made up of 300 million people. There are different points of view over there.

The nerve of this guy…he can’t possibly think that the majority of Americans would be ok with him visiting Ground Zero, no matter what his reason is. We have heard enough to know that he heads an anti-US regime, and that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. Somehow this doesn’t bother the left in this country. For some reason, they don’t see this man as a threat to our national security and to the security of Iran’s neighbors. We are right not to want Ahmadinejad visiting Ground Zero. It sends the wrong message to our allies and to our enemies.

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