JULY 9

Here’s my proposal. On July 9, as many blogs as possible focus on the struggle for freedom in Iran. It’s the anniversary of the pro-democracy protests that have been going on for years. I’ll devote the week after July 4 to this issue, culminating in July 9. Please send me links, ideas, articles pertaining to the Iranian struggle in the next few weeks. If you’re an Iranian dissident and may perhaps read this somewhere somehow, get in touch, email your thoughts. If you’re an Iranian ex-patriate, let me know what you think we need to link to or include. If you’re a blogger, make your own plans, and let me know so I can link. Many people have theorized about the power of the web to bring about change and the young generation in Iran must know this as well as any group of people. So let’s try and use it – if only to send a symbol of solidarity with those resisting the theo-fascists who have wrecked Iran for three generations.

STILL PLAYING THE GAME: Here’s an interesting nugget that tells you a lot about Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her book contains many inflammatory charges about various political and judicial figures. In particular, Chief Justice Rehnquist is portrayed as a political hack rather than a principled justice. Fair enough. It’s a free country. Rehnquist wisely decided not to comment on the smears. But what’s remarkable is that Hillary herself, when contacted by the Washington Post, “declined to be interviewed about the political content of her book.” Huh? There she goes again. Even now, as a Senator in her own right, Hillary still pulls the First Lady schtick to avoid a political fight. Yet the book is highly political. It’s not some anodine memoir of private life. It’s a tough piece of political rhetoric. Yet she won’t allow the press or others to challenge her on the politics of it. She still thinks she’s above it all. Perhaps she always will.

CBS VERSUS NYT: Vicious p.r. offensive from CBS News, in response to a New York Times’ story about CBS’s alleged attempt to market Jessica Lynch’s story for news and entertainment purposes:

Unlike the New York Times’ own ethical problems, there is no question about the accuracy or integrity of CBS News’ reporting. CBS News does not pay for interviews and it maintains a well-established separation from other parts of Viacom. The letters selectively quoted by the Times, when read in their entirety, make that explicitly clear. The letters state: “CBS News maintains editorial independence from the entertainment division,” “we never tie interview requests to entertainment projects,” and “we wanted to make sure that CBS News’ proposal was being considered as a single entity.” Mysteriously, none of those statements found their way into the “newspaper of record.”

Ouch.