He posted naught but snipes against the administration, random grabs at ‘hypocrisy,’ and interesting, but not particularly substantial takes on foreign policy events from journalists that he took as the gospel truth.

I ask you all, do you all doubt that, had we gone after the “bigger problem” Pakistan, and befriended Iran, he’d be breathlessly quoting the same articles about how we alienated Pakistan blah blah blah.

The cynicism of the truly lazy: assume everyone is as shallow as you are and attack them as hypocrites for pretending to be more.
This is the sheer stupidity of the reactionary. You don’t listen because you know why I disagree with you, you know that it’s as personal for me as it is for you. How can anyone argue with that?. I could come up with volumes of data and you would ignore it all (as indeed you have) because to you this is about some sort of hatred we have for each other.
I’m sorry, but this is not about your sense of entitlement or your ego, this is about what is best for this country. I have opinions because I’ve worked at following the news ever since I could read the words on a page. And it makes you angry that I seem to know things you don’t even though you never bothered to learn, so your response is to say “opinions are like assholes, everybody has one!”.

And presidents are elected on this logic. And people are sent to die in wars on this logic. What a waste.

I’m done. I’m done commenting here, under any name. I wish I could say it’s been fun, but it hasn’t. Mostly it’s made me sad.
So long Pat.

Bush keeps calling the dictator Musharraf our friend, as he does the Saudis and Mubarak in Egypt. Why? good question. Iran is more democratic than any of those.

Because you’d be saying the opposite thing if the situation were inverted? Or if we were friends with all of them? Or if we were enemies with them down to the last man?

[Honestly, AF, can you just pick one name and stick with it? -- P]

Needless to say, that is an entertaining outlook of the world presented by your excerpt in that it follows the comically quixotic idea that Iran can be made to operate in opposition to its national interests by offering carrots.

Once again, Iran’s reformists were knocked back on their heels. “Those who were in favor of a rapprochement with the United States were marginalized,” says Adeli. “The speech somehow exonerated those who had always doubted America’s intentions.”

Such a pity. Iran was always perfectly willing to not only cooperate but operate in America’s best interests… you know, until the cowboy rhetoric of Dubya made every Iranian realize how truly evil America was.

Then again, same thing happened to the Iranians when they denounced [Read, called for the destruction of] Israel. That’s how causality works, right?

Its something they’ve practices for decades. The big difference is how deficient Bush and his administration has been at making their case. It’s made the media’s tactic effective this time.

In a pattern that would become familiar, however, a chill quickly followed the warming in relations. Barely a week after the Tokyo meeting, Iran was included with Iraq and North Korea in the “Axis of Evil.” Michael Gerson, now a NEWSWEEK contributor, headed the White House speechwriting shop at the time. He says Iran and North Korea were inserted into Bush’s controversial State of the Union address in order to avoid focusing solely on Iraq. At the time, Bush was already making plans to topple Saddam Hussein, but he wasn’t ready to say so. Gerson says it was Condoleezza Rice, then national-security adviser, who told him which two countries to include along with Iraq. But the phrase also appealed to a president who felt himself thrust into a grand struggle. Senior aides say it reminded him of Ronald Reagan’s ringing denunciations of the “evil empire.”
Once again, Iran’s reformists were knocked back on their heels. “Those who were in favor of a rapprochement with the United States were marginalized,” says Adeli. “The speech somehow exonerated those who had always doubted America’s intentions.”

Counter-arguing quote mining is quite tedious because, a) conspiracy theorists NEVER cite their sources, and b) the effort in making half-assed claims about such things is a LOT smaller than the effort involved in correcting them.

Take it elsewhere, Beery/AF.