Saturday, September 06, 2008

Iranian political professor on Obama's qualifications

Mohammad-Ali Fardanesh, an Iraniam political science professor is as impressed as many of Obama's Americans supporters with his qualifications:

“The problem with Mr. Obama is his education. He is a Harvard graduate. The Americans cannot accept him because they consider him an elitist - someone who thinks he is above others, because he is better educated. They don’t understand that his education would enable him to serve them better.”

Thanks to Roger Kimball at the Roger's Rules for this one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From an Iranian's take on Palin:

"Right after the Revolution in Iran and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the Iran-Iraq war was started. To be fair, Iraq started that war, but the new revolutionary leaders of Iran saw the war as a godsend. They milked it for all it was worth. They labeled anyone against the war as a traitor or unpatriotic. Anyone who suggested that there may be a negotiated settlement was ridiculed and purged from power. Even Ayatollah Khomeini once said that this war is a blessing from God himself. You may see the parallels here already, but keep reading.

One of the problems the government faced was opposition from legions of mothers whose sons had been maimed or died in the war. To confront this problem, the government-controlled TV would parade a mother whose son had died in the war in front of the TV on a regular basis. Invariably, this "show mom" would be carrying an infant child and a few other siblings with her. And invariably, she would say something to the effect that "I have given one child to this 'sacred' war, and I am ready to give the next one." Almost always, there would be an adoring crowd who would follow her statements by chants of "Allaho-Akbar" (God is Great). And again invariably, her statements would follow by a not-so-veiled threat from her and the adoring crowd. She would say something like "I and my family would not tolerate traitors and betrayals to the faith and country". Then the crowd would break into several standard chants such as "Death to traitors" or "War, war, until victory."

Sarah Palin was much better dressed than the average show mom paraded on Iranian TV more than 20 years ago. The show moms were typically dressed in a black veil. But that’s about the biggest difference. The rhetoric was eerily familiar. When she was finished, I knew I had seen her before. Only that it wasn’t her. It was her ideological predecessors at a different time in a different country."

Sounds about right.

HT to Coturnix.