Jihadist Useful Idiots Update: They Love Khatami's Lies at Harvard

Muhammad Khatami, the former President of the Islamic Republic (Iran), may walk hand-in-hand with the present President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in their quest to conquer the West, but you wouldn't know that from his speeches at Harvard and other venues. Iranian American journalist Amir Taheri reveals the truth in his September 13 column in the New York Post, entitled "Lies They Love At Harvard." (HT: One of our readers. See also our earlier Hedgehog post on Khatami's invitation to speak at Harvard.)

However, most of the American media, following the lead of the Harvard Dons, continue to perform their useful idiots function. For example, both AP and ABC News carried this story by Michael Weissenstein entitled, "Khatami offers moderate vision of Iran." Mr. Weissenstein naively takes at face value the spin that "Khatami offered a moderate take on relations between East and West that focused on nonviolence, discussion and mutual understanding in sharp contrast to his hard-line successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." Taheri points out (as did World Citizen, an Iranian American commentator on our earlier Hedgehog post) that Khatami achieves this effect partially by having his Persian-English translator soften or distort his words when they are translated into English. In fact, in Persian, Khatami emphasized his agreement with Ahmadinejad, not his differences. Mostly, though, Khatami just lies and dissembles. And the American media and academic elites fawn over him like no one since Yassir Arafat, may his name be erased.