Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (New Republic Contributing Editors Edition)
Chris Orr of the New Republic on Charles Krauthammer. The wind-up:
It's All in How You Say It - The Plank:
"[A]fter treating this popular revolution as an inconvenience to the real business of Obama-Khamenei negotiations, the president speaks favorably of 'some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election.' Where to begin? 'Supreme Leader'? Note the abject solicitousness with which the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator." -- Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, June 19
"And the president has said 'I have seen in Iran's initial reaction from the supreme leader.' He is using an honorific to apply to a man whose minions out there are breaking heads, shooting demonstrators, arresting students, shutting the press down, and basically trying to suppress a popular democratic revolution." -- Charles Krauthammer, Fox News All Stars, June 16
The punch line:
"Look, these were sham elections from the beginning. In a real democracy, you can have a change of power as a result. That was not going to happen in Iran. The mullahs are in charge. Khamenei, the supreme leader, remains in charge." -- Charles Krauthammer, Fox News All Stars, June 12 [my italics]
Where to begin?
--Christopher Orr
But then comes the superpunchline, of course, which is the New Republic's own masthead:
THE NEW REPUBLIC | Masthead: Contributing Editors: Peter Beinart, David A. Bell, Paul Berman, Gregg Easterbrook, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Nathan Glazer, Anthony Grafton, David Grann, David Greenberg, Yossi Klein Halevi, Robert Kagan, Lawrence F. Kaplan, Michael Kinsley, Charles Krauthammer, Ryan Lizza, Jeremy McCarter, John McWhorter, Sherwin B. Nuland, Michael B. Oren, Steven Pinker, David Rieff, Maggie Scarf, Ronald Steel, Andrew Sullivan, Alan Taylor, E.V. Thaw, Helen Vendler, Michael Walzer, Sean Wilentz, Alan Wolfe, Robert Wright
