For 15 Minutes, the Mullahs Were “Moderate”

The ongoing spectacle of the Obama administration’s fecklessness in the face of Iranian nuclear ambitions and sponsorship of terrorism would be funny, if it were not tragic. Today’s installment began with in interview that Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, gave to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. CNN headlined: Iran’s new president: Yes, the Holocaust happened.

Now, you might not think this is much of a breakthrough: the Holocaust happened! But CNN hailed it as a major change in Iran’s leadership. The CNN story began:

Iran’s new president has acknowledged the Holocaust, furthering the stark contrast between himself and his predecessor.

“Any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime the Nazis committed towards the Jews as well as non-Jews, was reprehensible and condemnable,” President Hassan Rouhani said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

It’s a “stark contrast”! Ahmadinejad was a lunatic, but Rouhani is a moderate!

Rouhani, widely considered more moderate, has struck a positive tone and reached out to the West to improve relations, particularly with the United States.

Right. Other liberal news outlets joined in hailing the breakthrough. NBC, to take just one example, wrote breathlessly:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani repudiated his predecessor’s Holocaust denials on Wednesday, saying the Nazis “committed a crime against Jews” but that the question of “scale” should be left to historians. …

Rouhani’s address to the General Assembly on Tuesday was far more toned-down than any speech given to the world body by Ahmadinjead.

The idea that “repudiating…Holocaust denials” means that Iran has entered the ranks of normal countries is ridiculous on its face, but CNN’s balloon was soon shot down. FARS, Iran’s semi-official news agency, issued a heated denial that Rouhani had admitted that the Holocaust was a bad thing. Assuming that it happened at all. (This is what we lawyers call pleading in the alternative.) The FARS story is headlined, “Exclusive: CNN Fabricates Iranian President’s Remarks about Holocaust.”

American news channel CNN fabricated the remarks made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in response to the network’s question about the Holocaust.

The CNN aired its interview with Rouhani on Tuesday but the news channel added to or changed parts of his remarks when Christiane Amanpour asked him about the Holocaust.

Here is the exact transcript of the Farsi text according to the CNN broadcast….

The Red parts have been added or completely altered. The Yellow parts are the product of conceptual, and not precise, translation.

Yet, the underlined parts are the worst parts of the fabrications which totally change what President Rouhani has said.

After the CNN released the interview, hundreds of news agencies, TV and news channels, websites and weblogs broadcast this title: “Iran’s President Rouhani Calls Holocaust ‘Reprehensible’ Crime Against Jews”, a title quoted from the CNN; Or “Rouhani Recognizes the Holocaust as Crime against Jews”.

Read it all. Whatever. It is hard to say who is more pathetic, the Obama administration or its media enablers. (Of course, the media enablers are just the ones who don’t yet have jobs in the administration, so the distinction is subtle at best.) Through it all, President Rouhani maintains an attitude of moral superiority toward the United States and the Obama administration:

Rouhani also spoke for the first time about the skipped opportunity to meet or even shake hands with Obama — an encounter that White House officials said proved to be “too complicated” for Rouhani back home.

The Iranian president expressed the need for caution.

“We have no problem shaking Mr. Obama’s hand or negotiating but we need a plan of action to ensure these meetings create the conclusions that we want,” he said. “We did not have enough time to make it happen.

“We never have a problem shaking Mr. Obama’s hand,” he added. “It was two days ago that the U.S. proposed a meeting and we were not opposed.
“This is a very sensitive subject. We have not talked at that level for 35 years. We must take these steps carefully.”

So, yeah: all Obama has to do is kiss his a**, and Rouhani may be willing to humiliate Obama further. 50 Shades of Grey comes to world politics. Everyone understands, I assume, that Iran will acquire the bomb, and all Obama and his fellow submissives want is an excuse to avert their eyes while they socialize medicine here in the US.

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