Then last Sunday Clinton, under pressure from antiwar activists in Iowa, reacted indignantly to matter-of-fact statements by Bush that the broader war on terrorism--and the war in Iraq--wouldn't be resolved by the time his successor took office. Clinton took offense
Here's my letter:
Editor,
William Kristol has been wrong, dead wrong, on his analysis for four years, but he continues to appear in your magazine. Kristol has been so far off base that, in reference to his commentary on Iran, comedian Bill Maher said, "Hey, you know what, Nostrodamus? Why don't you sit this one out?"
Poor analysis is one thing. Using misinformation to make a point is another. Granted, it is the neo-clown playbook to mislead the public, but when Kristol does it in your magazine, it damages your credibility. In his most recent TIME column, Kristol implies that Senator Hillary Clinton believes the entire war on terrorism should be over by the end of the Bush presidency. This is not what Senator Clinton suggested. She suggested that it is irresponsible of President Bush to leave the mess in Iraq to the next president. And she is absolutely right.
I am a 33-year-old middle class consumer, the very kind of customer magazines like your’s are desperate to hang onto. But I can take no more Kristol. Cancel his contract or cancel my subscription.
The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.
The media loves conflict. Conflict sells papers and draws viewers and listeners. And that is why few American media outlets have taken note of student protests against President Ahmadenijad in Tehran.
A conference of the world's most prominent Holocaust deniers opened in Iran yesterday amid international condemnation and protests by dozens of Iranian students, who burned pictures of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and chanted "death to the dictator".
Never has the hardline leader, who was giving a speech at a university in Tehran yesterday, faced such open hostility at home.
This quote is not from the NY Times or the Washington Post and certainly not from the Washington Times or the NY Post. Nope, it's from The Scotsman, and a Google search for "Iran Holocaust conference student protests" brings up mostly European press.
Now, there is some uncertainty about what the student protests were all about. Some are now saying that the students were actually protesting a new rating system that can potentially deny young people admission to universities if they are too politically involved. But even if that was the motivation for the protests, outrage over the conference was also present.
One student said the crowd was protesting against the "shameful" Holocaust conference - which was organised after Mr Ahmadinejad described the murder of six million Jews by Nazis a "myth" invented to justify the occupation of Palestinian land - and the "fact that many activists with student movements have not been allowed to attend university".
The conference "has brought to our country Nazis and racists from around the world", the activist added.
The protest will be deeply embarrassing for the president, who has portrayed Iran as champion of free speech in hosting the event, organised by the Iranian foreign ministry.
And the American media missed it. Once again, the media is falling into the same trap it helped spring in the lead-up to the Iraq war. It is helping to create the climate to justify military action against Iran.
You probably don't recognize these pictures. These are photos from a candlelight vigil held in the streets of Tehran on September 18, 2001. Participants mourned the loss of innocent lives in the terrorist attacks of September 11.
Iran is not the monolith that some politicians and, out of laziness, the media are trying to create. Keep in mind that 70% of the Iranian population is under the age of 30. We would be well-served to nurture the Iranians' push back against Ahmadenijad's wackiness, not bomb it.
The Administration's planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. .... A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the C.I.A. analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it. The White House's dismissal of the C.I.A. findings on Iran is widely known in the intelligence community. Cheney and his aides discounted the assessment, the former senior intelligence official said.
Honestly, how can anyone support this Administration anymore? Maybe I'm cranky because it's late, but you really have to be dumber than a box of rocks to continue to support George W. Bush.
