Michael Goldfarb dings me. But he does so by ripping my post out of context. It is not exactly fair to write that I believe that Mousavi has the same policies as Tim Pawlenty, when in fact, I wrote:
I know it is light years away from the US but the distinction between Ahmadinejad's messianic, universalist faith and Mousavi's more realist traditionalism has some parallels in American conservatism … You can see the split between Palinesque populism and Pawlenty-style conservatism – in a vastly different and much less democratic context, of course.
When you are a propagandist, these caveats – and the whole idea of thinking out loud in order to understand a foreign culture better – are anathema. And that's why you end up shutling between "journalism" and being a spokesman for party campaigns.
The Dish 