MAKING EXCUSES FOR AHMADINEJAD

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh makes excuses for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Sy Hersh, I’d like to ask you, the role of the commercial media here in the United States, in terms of what -- you were raising the issue of where the American people are in terms of any Iran assault -- the whole furor that arose at the United Nations over the visit of Ahmadinejad and his speech at Columbia?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, you know, look, we have to have our Hitlers. America seems to thrive on Hitlers after Hitler went out. You know, we had Khrushchev. We had Stalin. We had Mao. We had Zhou Enlai. We had Gaddafi for a little while. We had Khomeini. We just bounce along from Hitler to Hitler. So he became the hit guy, Ahmadinejad.

Look, he says terrible things. It’s very stupid, what he says about the Holocaust. It’s counterproductive. He’s obviously very stubborn, but he’s not stupid. I wish the American press would have published some of his speech to the UN, because it was a pretty interesting speech, the actual speech, what he said. There were a lot of elements in it that were of great interest, and not at all irrational. And I asked somebody about the famous line about homosexuality, because it seemed so inept. And the Arab view is, if you talk to -- I'm talking about American Arabs and international, my friends overseas and those who know Farsi, what he said was -- and I’m not defending him; I’m just telling you what they say he said: “Homosexuality is not a problem in Iraq.” In other words, it’s just not a problem.

AMY GOODMAN: In Iran.

SEYMOUR HERSH: In Iran, rather. They don’t -- it’s just not a problem. He didn’t mean -- I don’t know whether the translation was flat, you know, when translations are always pretty bad, as any of you know. I’ve given speeches in foreign countries, and getting the translation back is always pretty comical. It’s never very good.

Hersh wouldn't have a clue. Here's the official translation provided by IRNA (Iran's offical news agency):

In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it.

A transcript of the question and answer session at Columbia University was posted at Ahmadinejad's personal site but has been removed, according to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission:

A few hours after the publication of our press release, the Iranian authorities were asked by journalists about their reasons for deleting any reference to homosexuality on the Persian section of the Iranian President's website. In response, the Iranian government immediately took down both English and Persian transcripts of President Ahmadinejad's Q and A at Columbia University, leaving only the text of his speech at that forum.

Anyway, back to the Hersh interview, during which he explains what's behind calls to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization:

Money. A lot of the Jewish money from New York. Come on, let's not kid about it. A significant percentage of Jewish money, and many leading American Jews support the Israeli position that Iran is an existential threat. And I think it’s as simple as that.

Jewish money is Hersh's Hitler.

And one more thing, I really wish Hersh had explained where homosexuality is a problem.