History, revisionistically speaking.

Ooooh, oooh, Mark ... while we're talking about "making up the past," I have another one for you. Stealing positively shamelessly from Cliff, we have journalistic hack Amir ("Iran! And Jews! And Badges!") Taheri suggesting that he was simply misunderstood:

This is not the first time Taheri has been associated with a media controversy. In May 2006, the Canadian daily The National Post published an article by him on the significance of Iran's having passed a law to impose an Islamic dress code.

Why, sure, and it was all a case of misinterpretation (emphasis added):

"I speculated about what they were then going to do about religious minorities," Taheri explained to Jerusalem Post editors. "Then I went back to history - how Jews were distinguished; how Christians were distinguished; how Zoroastrians were distinguished. The Canadian paper presented this as a news story - as though it had already happened [as though Jews were going to be forced to wear the equivalent of the Nazi-imposed yellow star] - and everyone started attacking me [for giving false information]. It was really a big, big misunderstanding."

Sadly, though, as Cliff points out, the videotape tells a different story (emphasis added to point out the obvious future tense being used):

The law … envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean)…

Of course, the best part was how the Canadian shriek-o-sphere fell over itself spreading the word, and what happened when cooler heads tried to prevail in the comments sections:

maz2,

And the rest for that matter. I know Islam bashing is the norm and all, but lets stick to proven facts, not made up ones..

From your own National Post:

"Last Friday, the National Post ran a story prominently on the front page alleging that the Iranian parliament had passed a law that, if enacted, would require Jews and other religious minorities in Iran to wear badges that would identify them as such in public. It is now clear the story is not true. Given the seriousness of the error, I felt it necessary to explain to our readers how this happened."

Now I know the general line of thinking here is biased, but at least get the facts straight.

Posted by: jeremiah at April 23, 2007 5:25 PM

Poor Jeremiah ... he really should know better than to bring that objective, clear-headed analysis into Kate's house, as the appropriately-named commenter "Rattfuc" proceeds to set him straight:

Jeremiah:
Whether or not the story was false or not, the fact remains that Jews are targeted by the Iranian government as enemies.

Exactly. It's not important whether the story was true -- it only matters that it could have been true, at which point Rattfuc goes on to clarify the basic foundation of everything that is Small Dead Animals:

Yes, the general line of thinking here [at SDA] is definitely biased. Biased in favor of human rights,dignity and truth. Your specious comments would be amusing, if it were not for the Jews that are being persecuted by you and your fellow travelers.

If the comments on this blog cause you to think they are biased, then you are absolutly correct. Biased in the way of truth, justice and decency toward all mankind.

Adding anything to that last bit would simply take away from its wingnuttery perfection, don't you think?

BONUS TRACK: In case you didn't follow the link, Cliff also points us at this delightful smackdown of Amir Tehari, with such enlightening passages as:

Taheri was unreachable by phone. But Benador, who said her client was "traveling in the Middle East," was impatient with dissections of his work. Terming accuracy with regard to Iran "a luxury," ...

Yes ... as with pretty much everything else in the wank-o-sphere, accuracy is a "luxury." It's also, as I understand it, hard work. That's quite the double whammy there.