Let’s see. The ayatollahs are genocidal Jew-haters who hope to obliterate Israel in a nuclear holocaust. The Tea Party isn’t. The ayatollahs are in favor of stoning women who commit adultery. The Tea Party isn’t. The ayatollahs support murdering people who leave Islam. The Tea Party doesn’t. The ayatollahs support second-class status for women and non-Muslims. The Tea Party doesn’t.
The mainstream media, of course, always uses the word “conservatives” for people they don’t like. This creates the peculiar paradox that opponents of Sharia in the West are “far right” and “conservative,” while those who support Sharia in Muslim countries are “far right” and “conservative.” These appellations have become essentially meaningless.
Witless Moral Equivalence Alert: “Ayatollah DeMint? CBS Reporter Equates Iran’s Islamist Hardliners To U.S. Tea Party,” by Tim Graham for Newsbusters, June 15 (thanks to Maxwell):
For many years, the networks have done a sloppy job of comparing “conservatives” around the globe. As the Berlin Wall fell, the “conservatives” became the communists who wanted to keep their grip on power and not give way to democracy. That’s hardly comparable to American conservatives.
On Saturday night, CBS News was doing this sloppy dance on the elections in Iran. From London, reporter Elizabeth Palmer declared all the candidates to succeed Ahmadinejad were the Islamist equivalent of the American Tea Party movement:
JIM AXELROD: Liz, a man named Hassan Rowhani will be the next president of Iran. Is he in the mold of Ahmadinejad?
ELIZABETH PALMER: Well he was seen as the most reform-minded of all the candidates who ran this time. That being said, they were all very conservative. In U.S. terms, it was as if all the candidates for the presidency came from the Tea Party.
Nevertheless, young people especially see Mr. Rowhani as presenting a little bit of a hope for liberal reforms. He is a cleric. He is 64 years old. Hes a very experienced diplomat, quite charismatic and extremely close to the centers of power in Iran.
Why must they do that? Can’t they denounce the Tea Party for being alleged haters of Islam? Do they have to add the smear that they’re somehow like the ayatollahs?