Glenn Greenwald

Friday Oct. 3, 2008 11:18 EDT

Salon Radio: L.A. Times' Tim Rutten on Ahmadinejad

(updated below)

The Los Angeles Times's Tim Rutten wrote a column on Wednesday attacking "last week's abominable speech by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at the United Nations." Rutten chided the U.N. and the American public for not taking Ahmadinejad's "threats" seriously enough and ended his column this way: "Shame on them; shame on us." The headline: "Ahmadinejad's evil words aren't just talk -- Threats by Iran's president are not empty rhetoric; he means what he says, and we ignore him at our peril." Rutten recited many of the standard claims made by those who urge a harder-line towards Iran.

I disagreed with numerous points Rutten made as well as the column's overall tenor and mentality, and invited him on Salon Radio to discuss his column. The interview is roughly 20 minutes long and can be heard by clicking PLAY below. A transcript is here.

UPDATE: On an obviously related note, this was the exchange I found most striking in last night's Biden-Palin debate:

BIDEN: Gwen, no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to Israel than Joe Biden. I would have never, ever joined this ticket were I not absolutely sure Barack Obama shared my passion. . . .

PALIN: But I'm so encouraged to know that we both love Israel, and I think that is a good thing to get to agree on, Sen. Biden. I respect your position on that.

They don't just consider Israel an ally. They don't just both support Israel. No, that's woefully inadequate. Instead: Biden has a "passion" for Israel and is its best friend, while Palin declares how excited she is that they "both love Israel."

They "love Israel"? I'm asking this literally, not rhetorically: is there any other country in the world where presidential candidates are required to -- or even could -- proclaim their "passion" and "love" for another country in a national election? And other than Israel, is there any country for which candidates for the American presidency could get away with proclaiming their "passion" and "love"? It's not exactly healthy or rational for someone who wants to lead one country to swear their fealty, passion and love for another.

-- Glenn Greenwald

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I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. I am the author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (May, 2006), a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. My most recent book, "Great American Hypocrites", examines the manipulative electoral tactics used by the GOP and propagated by the establishment press, and was released in April, 2008, by Random House/Crown.