Media Gives Ahmadinejad A Pass

August 23rd, 2006 12:28 PM

(Correction) While the speech appeared on the web the morning of the 22nd, it was apparently given the prior week. - Dan

When Iran met its self-imposed deadline of responding to a UN Resolution by August 22nd, much of the MSM coverage reported Iran's claim that it was ready for serious talks. That's exemplified by an AP article linked at bottom. But the MSM failed to tell the whole story of Ahmadinejad's day.

While some outlets did balance that with punditry suggesting it was mainly a ploy to buy more time, no MSM outlets reported how Ahmadinejad actually started the day. He gave a political speech calling for England and America to bow and surrender.

If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender....

But they (America and Britain) had the audacity to postpone the cease-fire for at least three weeks. They explicitly declared that the Zionist regime should be allowed to crush the resistance, and to occupy the land, and that [only] then would there be a cease-fire. I want to declare loud and clear, so that the whole world will hear: These two countries are not worthy of being members of the Security Council.

Were it 1938, I suspect they'd be showing us footage of Hitler walking in his garden, perhaps prepping for a Mike Wallace interview wherein he suggests he isn't anti-semitic, it's simply that the Jews would be better off if they re-located ... perhaps to the Middle East.

The media's failure to paint a clear picture of Iran and its leadership could make it more difficult for President Bush to build a political consensus if events require America to take a hard line in preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Also on video at lgf.

TEHRAN, Iran -        Iran said Tuesday it was ready for "serious negotiations" on its nuclear program, offering a new formula to resolve a crisis with the West. A semiofficial news agency said the government was unwilling to abandon uranium enrichment — the key U.S. demand.

Iran delivered its written response to a package of incentives offered by the United States and five other world powers to persuade Iran to roll back on its nuclear program — and punishments if it does not. The world powers, the five permanent        U.N. Security Council members plus Germany, have given Iran until Aug. 31 to accept the package.