There was a story on US National Public Radio awhile back that indicated that those who participated in the embassy take-over in 1979 were esteemed nowadays. So it's hardly surprising if someone in that group now became President. (After all, several people (e.g., Eisenhower, Kennedy) have become President of the US based partly on their participation in enterprises popularly seen as heroic.) Of course, that doesn't seem a justification for  a US war on Iran. <div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Ex-Hostages Say Iran Leader-Elect a Captor By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 28 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The White House said Thursday it is taking seriously the allegations of some former American hostages who say they believe that Iran's president-elect was one of their captors in the late 1970s. "I think the news reports and statements from several former American hostages raise many questions about his past," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of the Iranian president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "We take them very seriously and we are looking into them to better understand the facts." </blockquote></div>-- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.