Memo: "Time" Out - Part II: Admiring Ahmadinejad

In what can only be assumed to be the byproduct of extreme intellectual constipation, the kind which produces a high measure of rhetorical flatulence but ultimately fails to address the source problem and subsequently leaves all in the vicinity sickened by the entirety of the effort, Time magazine wrote a glowing report on one of the most depraved and evil men of this age.

Mahmoud Amadinejad was given the honored title of "People Who Mattered" in Time's final issue of the year. Sure, Ahmadinejad matters, but as the picture to your right demonstrates, somebody at Time has a more active imagination than I do and has been able to see through to the good that sits deep in the heart of the man whose ambition in life is to kill more Jewish people with one bomb than Hitler was able to kill in the entirety of his attempt to create the master race.

Time magazine wastes no time in making clear the standards upon which Ahmadinejad's virtue is being determined. The first paragraph reads:

For a man of such outsize ambition, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tries hard to seem normal. He drives a 20-year-old Peugeot and spends a few nights a week at a modest house in a residential neighborhood of Tehran. When he visited New York City in September, his wife brought dates from Iran to save money on food. And then there is the Jacket, the bland beige windbreaker he wears even for affairs of state, projecting the image he prefers for himself as champion of the dispossessed, a global Everyman.

So here it is my friends, Ahmadinejad is a hero and a man of virtue based on the following: 1) An old car, 2) one of his houses is small, 3) his wife's dates, and 4) a windbreaker jacket. Because of these things, Time exuberantly hails him as a "champion of the dispossessed" and a "global Everyman". A liberal's dream, a person who dresses the part - his jacket gives him street cred and is an obvious display of his good character. Time need not bother further explicating what he has done to champion the cause of the dispossessed since the jacket pretty much sums it up.

After finishing up their shiny summery of their man of the hour, Time sits down to drill Ahmadinejad with one of those "hard hitting" questions that distinguished publications of note, such as Time, are known for:

TIME: You are still teaching a course at the university? You must love teaching.

AHMADINEJAD: It is my main career.

Wow, a real zinger. Don't worry they get harder:

TIME: Did you have a happy childhood?

AHMADINEJAD: Yes. We were a very sincere and loving family...

Hmm, yeah. Well, it is understandable that they would not want to offend the dicta - er - President of Iran, after all he is granting Time their second interview with him in three months! What a swell guy. Just in case you forgot how swell a guy this is, Time provided you with a picture (seen above) at the beginning of the article to remind you. Look, there are doves, a kid holding a shiny ball of light, and... wait a minute - where is Ahmadinejad's windbreaker!? That jacket looks a lot like a dressy sports jacket! I think I'm being duped here, I don't think that picture is representative of how things really are!

All mocking of the totally absurd aside, this Time article demonstrates a very disturbing truth about Ahmadinejad and highlights a very troublesome problem that American's today are facing. Ahmadinejad understands how the American media operates and how the American left, whose opinions are most loudly heard in the long-established media strongholds, thinks. Because of this, he is able to woo over the media and frame the discussion however he pleases.

First, Ahmadinejad understands that appearance is everything for the left; wear an old windbreaker and drive an old car and you are set. I am not sure how dressing like a poor college student actually helps the dispossessed in any way, and I'm also curious to know what the environmentalist crazies have to say about Ahmadinejad's 20 year old beater of a car which probably spews out more dangerous carbon gases in an hour than does my newer, fuel efficient Focus in a week. However, Time overlooks these things (this man is an enemy of the Bushitler after all) and for appearance sake, Ahmadinejad is a humble and simple man.

Second, Ahmadinejad understands that the left is mantra operated. Employing the use of key ideas such as the value of freedom and the ability to choose one's own destiny, Ahmadinejad understands that Time and his audience on the American left will never connect his phraseology to his political policies and practice. He, of course, is right in this as was demonstrated in the article when he mentioned the letter which he had sent to President Bush a short time ago. Time never pushed him on why he cared about hurricane Katrina, Kyoto, or any of the other non-Iranian issues which Ahmadinejad addressed. They didn't push him because they think they already know why he, and all of us, should care. He reiterated their own talking points and they did not even think twice to question him since both parties were in complete agreement. It is good to have powerful allies I suppose.

Third, Ahmadinejad understands the philosophy that operates at the core of liberalism: America and the West are guilty of causing great harm and damage to the world and are responsible for much, if not all, of the world's problems. All throughout the interview, Ahmadinejad makes himself and his country out to be the hapless victims of the impersonal, imperialist American (and Western) forces in the Middle East. He frames his undesired joining of the military and the birth of his political activist career in this light. He then goes on to accuse America of engaging in this selfish imperialism today in Iraq going so far as to claim that Iraq doesn't need a guardian, that their rich history with scientists and scholars (the two greatest hero-type figures of the left) will politically save the country from total demise. In reality, Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than for the United States to vacate his neighbor to the southwest so that his terrorist operatives (who are currently responsible for much of the chaos in Iraq) can turn Iraq into another proxy for Iran much the same as Syria is.

Finally, Ahmadinejad knows that his worldwide status as the anti-Bush makes him an automatic hero to the left. Like a practiced PR surgeon, Ahmadinejad carefully attempted to separate the American people from the American government (ie: Bush) to appeal to his fans on the left, demonstrate his goodwill towards them, and ally himself with them through co-belligerence against a common enemy. Time never pushed him on the non-Iranian content of these letters. They never questioned his interpretation of the history and creation of the nation of Israel. When he made a claim that the era of those who used nuclear bombs was over, all that Time could do was operate within the framework of co-belligerence and quake in their boots at the thought of what Ahmadinejad would be forced to do if their common enemy, Bush, attempted to stop him.

In the end, my friends, Time's glowing review of the man whose hatred of the Jews is matched only by his vehement hate of the secular vices wrought by western freedom and democracy leaves little for an observant, rational, virtuous person to appreciate. Time's total abandon of any sort of intellectual critique of this up-and-coming tyrant demonstrates the fantasy world which many on the left currently operate in; a world in which all people are essentially good, appearance is taken to be the thing itself, evil and terrorism are merely matters of opinion which are rendered meaningless by the nuances of life, and all the world's problems could be resolved if we simply let go of our antiquated ideals of good and evil and accepted our overwhelming hypocrisy and guilt in the world.

In case you are wondering, the author of this piece for Time did not have the last name of Chamberlain.

Read this masterful work of liberal twaddle: People Who Mattered: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad