> But somehow there
> seems to be a wacky anti-imperialist line that holds that you can't
> criticize clowns abroad because we're afflicted with clowns at home.
Is anybody actually saying this?
Of course to the extent that the guy is a clown anybody who likes is free to say so. Perhaps our real difference is that I personally don't find him as clownish as you do, and from what I've been reading there are at least a substantial number of Iranians -- perhaps even a majority -- who identify with him and like what he's doing. What are they, chopped liver?
No doubt the "educated classes" of your earlier post are as you say "embarrassed" by Ahmadi, but the "educated classes" everywhere are very easily embarrassed. They often have a somewhat precarious and anxiety-ridden grasp on gentility, and overvalue certain intellectual and behavioral shibboleths that mark their social distance from the Great Unwashed. And "educated classes" on the global periphery way overvalue the good opinion of their metropolitan counterparts.
So the "embarrassment of the educated classes" doesn't weigh very heavily with me in trying to form an opinion of Ahmadi or trying to figure out what's going on in Iran.
> Many Americans were embarrassed that
> their previous president was an ignorant religious fundamentalist too.
> Too bad we didn't go into the streets in large numbers after he stole
> an election in 2000 like Iranians are now.
In support of... Al 'NAFTAman' Gore? The "educated classes" would probably have been less embarrassed by him, true -- which just goes to show how shameless they really are, in spite of their pinky-in-the-air parlor manner.
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org